Heli

Heli (2013) is a Mexican crime drama from Amat Escalante that you can watch online on iFILM. The film earned Escalante the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Heli shares a cramped house on the outskirts with his father, his wife, their baby and his twelve-year-old sister Estela. When the girl falls for a young police cadet, he drags the family into the orbit of a drug cartel. A single reckless choice spirals into abduction, torture and revenge that burns their old life to the ground. Heli is left alone against the violence — and against a state that finishes people off rather than protecting them.

Escalante shoots dry and merciless, no music, no gloss, recording brutality almost in real time. This is hard cinema and not for everyone; a few scenes are genuinely tough to sit through. But for viewers after an honest, uncompromising auteur statement about Mexico, it cuts deep and stays. Stream Heli (2013) online on iFILM.