A Wolfpack Called Ernesto

Una jauría llamada Ernesto

Child sicarios, a wolfpack called Ernesto, arms dealer, narcos
Artegios

VERDICT: Mexican documentarian Everardo González is at his best in a shockingly brutal film without a drop of blood.

Léalo en español

Today’s cinema is always looking for newer and cruder ways to show violence. Everardo González has chosen to direct A Wolfpack Called Ernesto without showing a drop of blood, nor a dead body, nor a scream, and yet it’s a brutal and shocking documentary. The protagonists are young sicarios – some of these paid killers started the “job” at age 11– and firearms dealers in Mexico. Their off-screen voices are all the more appalling because they don’t sound vicious or dramatic; the way they talk about their business of death makes it more distressing. “You leave your home in the morning and you know you are going to kill someone, that’s it, that’s all.” Is there anything more shocking than to consider killing as just another day at the office?

Everardo González is one of the three best Mexican documentary filmmakers alive. In recent years, he has oscillated between stories of violence, such as the remarkable The Devil’s Freedom (2017) and almost meditative films about the lack of water, or spiritual beliefs such as Drought (2011), Yermo (2021) and Lopon (2021). Whether such diverse interests are a way to maintain lucidity or a way to survive, the audience benefits from his constancy in production and variety of topics.

Most of the time A Wolfpack Called Ernesto shows the back of a person, from the head to the middle of the back, occupying center screen. This perspective, shot by the camera of the very talented Maria Secco, not only helps to maintain the anonymity of the protagonist but also gives the feeling of a “third person shooter” videogame. The rest of the screen is out of focus, which at times causes dizziness. The few shots without the protagonist in the center give an idea of the environment, nameless cities that could be any city — and in fact they are every city and town in Mexico. After each sequence, there is a fade to black that lasts from 10 to 30 seconds, so that reality penetrates our brain or gives it a short break. Until the next sequence hits us again.

In just a few curt phrases from those who are part of it, the documentary debunks the official stories reported by the police. “When they catch you, it’s because someone snitches on you, not because they  did an investigation,” we learn. It also hits corrupt organizations and institutions. “My main supplier of weapons is the Mexican army,” “even the Presidential General Staff has sold me weapons”, “the neighborhood cops have sold me several 9 mm.” And even the U.S. government is implicated: “all weapons come from the States; the new ones are sold to us by the government, the used ones we buy from gangs.”

Not only that, but it also destroys certain urban myths in which Mexicans take some comfort. These kids are not illiterate young people from broken families, who kill out of hunger and need; they are not foolish and do not expect to climb the pyramid of power of a cartel. All of these young sicarios went to school, at least up to middle high school, and not one mentions having gone hungry. They also know exactly where they stand, beause “no matter how many people you kill, you’re never going to be one of the bosses, ever.”

These teenagers are focused on the present, their life expectancies are short, and “the future is like running into a wall”, says one of them. Another version of Andrea Gentile’s 1987 doc Truth is, there is no future or the “no future” of Victor Gaviria’s 1990 Rodrigo D: No Future.

The director could have saved the part about arms dealers for another documentary and focused only on the child sicarios. The mosaic shown by the documentary is so varied that it becomes confusing at times. Perhaps the rush, the urgent need to do something, led him to this mélange.

Since the early 1990s, when firearms became so light that a child between the ages of 10 and 12 could use them as lethally as any adult, the United Nations has called for legislating and arresting those who recruit minors. A Wolfpack called Ernesto strongly reinforces this warning, showing that it’s a daily problem in our cities.

Director: Everardo González
Screenplay:
Óscar Balderas, Daniela Rea y Everardo González
Producers:
Roberto Garza e Inna Payán
Co-producer: Jean-Christophe Simon
Cinematography: María Secco
Editing:
Paloma López Carrillo
Music:
Andrés Sánchéz Maher, Haxah, Konk Reyes
Direct Sound: Bernat Fortiana
Sound Design:Matias Barberis
Production companies: Animal De Luz Films (Mexico), Artegios (Mexico) in association with Films Boutique (France), Bord Cadre Films (Switzerland), Sovereign Films (Great Britain), World Cinema Fund (Germany)
International Sales: Films Boutique
Venue: Guadalajara Internacional Film Festival FICG
In Spanish
72 minutes