El Sicario: Room 164 (2010)

Directed by: Gianfranco Rosi | 84 minutes | documentary

It is difficult to determine exactly when it started, but at the beginning of the 21st century, every documentary is suspect from the outset. Sometimes a documentary turns out to be total fiction, sometimes true parts are re-enacted, sometimes things are edited in such a way that a new meaning arises, sometimes an ordinary documentary secretly turns out to be a documentary about making documentaries. The documentary ‘El Sicario: Room 164’ cannot escape premature doubt. ‘This film stems from Charles Bowden’s essay “The Sicario” published in 2009 in Harper’s Magazine’ we read in the press kit. And what does that mean?

We don’t know whether the person portrayed is real or not. That’s not bad. In the end, it’s about the stories, and they seem truthful enough. Those stories have an inner logic and are rich in convincing details. Through those stories, the viewer learns how the Mexican gangs are organized, how they commit their crimes, how deeply rooted they are in Mexican society and how far their tentacles extend over Mexican public institutions. These stories help you understand the newspaper reports about the all-encompassing chaos in Mexico.

To make the film more than just a listening experience, the makers have opted for two clever tricks. While the hit man talks, he illustrates what he says in a notebook. That notebook works like a magnet for the viewer, also because from the notebook and from the gestures with which the assassin signs, you can distill his doubts, despondency and excitement. At other times the portrayed person acts out a kidnapping or murder, which takes some getting used to but eventually works.

‘El Sicario: Room 164′ is a documentary that makes a maximum impression with minimal means. In an hour and a half you will hear stories of the most terrible kind with increasing bewilderment. It doesn’t matter whether the storyteller is a real hitman. ‘El Sicario: Room 164’ derives its right to exist from the light it shines on the deep darkness in Mexico, a country that, like the hitman, yearns for redemption. Of any kind.