Eniac Martinez photoStephanie Sigman plays the vexing protagonist Laura in Miss Bala.
Miss Bala
(out of 4)
Starring Stephanie Sigman and Noe Hernandez. Directed by Gerardo Naranjo. 113 minutes. Opens Feb. 3 at AMC Yonge-Dundas. 14A
It would be easy to imagine Miss Bala being made as a fish-out-of-water comedy.
Even easier would be thinking of it as an action film, with lead Stephanie Sigman playing an avenging Amazon like Gina Carano in Stephen Soderbergh’s current thriller Haywire.
Instead, rising Mexican director Gerardo Naranjo (I’m Gonna Explode) gives us something far more potent and more meaningful, via a vexing protagonist and uncompromising narrative that will doubtless cost him multiplex appeal but gains him mucho artistic credibility.
From its play-on-words title, which translates as “Miss Bullet,” to its relentless trawl through Mexico’s increasingly above-ground criminal underworld, Naranjo is unflinching in his determination not to serve up mindless entertainment.
Miss Bala is intended as a wake-up call to how things really are in Mexico, where recent years of drug-gang warfare and random violence have erased tourism myths of constantly smiling faces and sunny beaches.
Sigman’s Laura Guerrero, a 23-year-old beauty pageant aspirant caught in the crossfire of civilization’s decline, is presented as Mexico’s Everywoman, the ordinary decent person on a forced march through hell.
Naranjo foregrounds Laura’s symbolic stature by shooting her from behind at first, her head in silhouette as she bids her blue-collar dad and young brother farewell.
Pretty but not drop-dead gorgeous, Laura could be almost anyone, as she travels to Tijuana seeking a faint chance to compete for the title of Miss Baja California. Her anonymity is precisely the point.
Laura and her best friend Suzu (Lakshmi Picazo), who is also hoping to make it to the big televised contest, attend a party at a warehouse club also patronized by undercover agents for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
The festivities are rudely interrupted by the explosive arrival of drug cartel enforcers, who are out to stop the government crackdown on their illicit trade. Suzu vanishes in the bloody melee and the resourceful Laura briefly eludes the attackers, but she makes the mistake of trusting a corrupt cop, who immediately turns her in to the cartel.
What ensues is a nightmare survival bid by Laura, who is obliged to become an accomplice and sex slave of the cartel after its leader Lino (Noe Hernandez) takes a shine to her. No mere gangland caricature, he’s an enigmatic figure of menace, speaking volumes when he tells his men, as he does often, “You know what to do.”
There are many moments where Miss Bala could turn into a full-blown thriller like Mission: Impossible, but Naranjo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mauricio Katz, resolutely resists the impulse.
Naranjo could also have Laura being less passive than she is. She is maddeningly hard to read, but her main intention isn’t. Laura is not only trying to save her only life, but also the lives of her cartel-threatened dad and brother.
Naranjo, who also edits, seeks to show things as they are, not as Hollywood would pretend them to be.
There’s no more pulse-raising sensation than realizing what we’re viewing on screen bears a strong resemblance to reality — and indeed, Miss Bala is partially drawn from the mob travails of a real-life beauty queen.
And there’s no more surreal moment than when that beauty pageant actually happens, rigged by the mob, and inside the models speak of love and world peace while outside the streets run with blood.
(out of 4)Starring Stephanie Sigman and Noe Hernandez. Directed by Gerardo Naranjo. 113 minutes. Opens Feb. 3 at AMC Yonge-Dundas. 14A
It would be easy to imagine Miss Bala being made as a fish-out-of-water comedy.
Even easier would be thinking of it as an action film, with lead Stephanie Sigman playing an avenging Amazon like Gina Carano in Stephen Soderbergh’s current thriller Haywire.
Instead, rising Mexican director Gerardo Naranjo (I’m Gonna Explode) gives us something far more potent and more meaningful, via a vexing protagonist and uncompromising narrative that will doubtless cost him multiplex appeal but gains him mucho artistic credibility.
From its play-on-words title, which translates as “Miss Bullet,” to its relentless trawl through Mexico’s increasingly above-ground criminal underworld, Naranjo is unflinching in his determination not to serve up mindless entertainment.
Miss Bala is intended as a wake-up call to how things really are in Mexico, where recent years of drug-gang warfare and random violence have erased tourism myths of constantly smiling faces and sunny beaches.
Sigman’s Laura Guerrero, a 23-year-old beauty pageant aspirant caught in the crossfire of civilization’s decline, is presented as Mexico’s Everywoman, the ordinary decent person on a forced march through hell.
Naranjo foregrounds Laura’s symbolic stature by shooting her from behind at first, her head in silhouette as she bids her blue-collar dad and young brother farewell.
Pretty but not drop-dead gorgeous, Laura could be almost anyone, as she travels to Tijuana seeking a faint chance to compete for the title of Miss Baja California. Her anonymity is precisely the point.
Laura and her best friend Suzu (Lakshmi Picazo), who is also hoping to make it to the big televised contest, attend a party at a warehouse club also patronized by undercover agents for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
The festivities are rudely interrupted by the explosive arrival of drug cartel enforcers, who are out to stop the government crackdown on their illicit trade. Suzu vanishes in the bloody melee and the resourceful Laura briefly eludes the attackers, but she makes the mistake of trusting a corrupt cop, who immediately turns her in to the cartel.
What ensues is a nightmare survival bid by Laura, who is obliged to become an accomplice and sex slave of the cartel after its leader Lino (Noe Hernandez) takes a shine to her. No mere gangland caricature, he’s an enigmatic figure of menace, speaking volumes when he tells his men, as he does often, “You know what to do.”
There are many moments where Miss Bala could turn into a full-blown thriller like Mission: Impossible, but Naranjo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mauricio Katz, resolutely resists the impulse.
Naranjo could also have Laura being less passive than she is. She is maddeningly hard to read, but her main intention isn’t. Laura is not only trying to save her only life, but also the lives of her cartel-threatened dad and brother.
Naranjo, who also edits, seeks to show things as they are, not as Hollywood would pretend them to be.
There’s no more pulse-raising sensation than realizing what we’re viewing on screen bears a strong resemblance to reality — and indeed, Miss Bala is partially drawn from the mob travails of a real-life beauty queen.
And there’s no more surreal moment than when that beauty pageant actually happens, rigged by the mob, and inside the models speak of love and world peace while outside the streets run with blood.
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