The Mexican drug war has claimed more than 1,20,000 lives since 2006 when the country’s military got involved. Back in 1997 — a decade before the Latin American country’s government stepped in to reduce drug-based violence — American producer Eric Newman had just heard about the Cali cartel in horrifying detail.
“This was eight years after the Berlin Wall had come down and we had effectively vanquished communism,” he remembers. “We had completely ignored and contributed to allowing drug traffic take route. The level of violence in ’97 hadn’t gotten as bad as it eventually did. The events in [the] 80s and early 90s Mexico have contributed to this [situation]. Opioids have killed so many people and it’s truly scary.”
The vast amount of information he unearthed was too expansive for a feature film which Newman initially wanted. “To do it properly, you have to do it in a longer format. You can’t portray humans doing inhuman things and also [simultaneously] humanise them in two hours.” Cut to 2015, and the launch of Narcos , the show, which has Newman as executive producer and showrunner, was responsible for a hike in Netflix subscriptions all over the world. After dissecting Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s life and works in two seasons and the gruesome methods of the Cali cartel in the show’s third season, the scene has shifted to the Guadalajara cartel.
Fact and fiction
In what is essentially a reset for the show, Narcos Mexico chronicles the rise and fall of drug king Félix Gallardo who single-handedly organised the drug business in Mexico. Newman along with the stars of the new season, Diego Luna and Michael Peña were recently in Mumbai to launch the series. “He managed to seat on the table, people who were trying to kill each other,” says Luna who plays Gallardo. “He managed to get them to protect each other and create a system that was more important than any man. He could be engaging and charming and he was like a politician.”
Hot on Gallardo’s heels is American DEA agent Kiki Camarena (Michael Peña) who, though fiercely motivated to do the right thing, has just about everything against him. Though the show focuses on the often excruciating cat and mouse chase between the two, it transcends being a mere thriller about drugs. “Someone once called [our show] pulp non-fiction and I like that very much,” laughs Newman. “Our goal is to take the signature landmark events and we string together a story and sometimes we have to take liberties. Even a documentary has a fair amount of subjectivity but through the courageous work of journalists we have been able to create a pretty reliable narrative.”
Crisis of the hour
While Newman deftly gives his audience self-inflicted manicures with the horrors rendered by the drug war, he also breaks down why the law enforcement of both countries has failed its people and allowed the opioid industry to flourish. At the heart of Narcos Mexico , is the callousness of Americans to do their job, the extensive political corruption of the Latin American country and the victims that are a result of an insatiable need for money and power. Through ten one-hour-long episodes, the show dissects the origins of how the opioid war has decimated thousands of lives. “I have always been drawn to the interconnected nature of this world,” says Newman talking about how the cocaine trade in London is the same in Mumbai or even Mexico, coming from the same source. Drug addition, according to the producer, should be treated as a health care crisis instead of a law and order one. Pena reiterates, “The news in America is very one-sided…that the cartels have done all this horrible stuff. I think if we stop the demand, then the drugs too will stop.”
While the trio admit that Narcos Mexico is entertainment, they are hopeful of drawing attention to and maybe starting a discourse on drug wars. “The danger is more prevalent now,” emphasises Newman, adding that while we are so busy looking for monsters, we might oversee those formed by the appetite for drugs in America. “It’s as stupid as thinking that a wall is somehow going to solve our problems. We have an obligation to paint these people, not as we wish they were, but how they actually were. Escobar did evil things for sure, but he’s a man just like anyone else and if we deny that then you miss the next one that comes along.”
Narcos Mexico is streaming on Netflix
