There and Back Again - Mad Max: Fury Road and Cartel Land

Courtesy of my Amazon LoveFilm subscription, I watched the latest instalment of the Mad Max films. Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy), haunted by the death of his family, captured and used as a blood donor in a post-apocalyptic landscape, tries to help a group of women escape from their evil overlord.

Mad Max is one of those subjects that's difficult to discuss objectively. It's all about how you feel: rationalising doesn't work. Subtle things like, I dunno, plot or the quality of the acting, pale into insignificance. You have to judge it on it's own terms. You have to ask "Is it bonkers?". The answer is Yes. Yes it is. Yes, it's very bonkers. There is, however, a lot of driving around the desert in amazingly weird vehicles covered in spikes, so it is fun, but part of your brain feels a little uncomfortable as it tries to evaluate subtle things like plot, which is futile as there is none.

Much more downbeat is the subject of this documentary film about a Mexican and an American and their answer to the criminal cartels dominating life around the border between the two counties:

Even though Mireles is no saint (at one point he virtually orders the death of one of the gang members), you have more than a little sympathy for him: his situation has been brought about by the gangs on the one hand and a corrupt and cynical government on the other. Nailer is much more complex, but again there's the feeling of a government too far away to care. The film matches up with a book I found at the shop a while ago, called Amexica, by a journalist who covers the area: