Mexico Submits Cannes Award Winner 'Heli' for 2014

The first thing anyone is sure to notice in Amat Escalante's Heli is Lorenzo Hagerman's

cinematography. The film opens with the sole of a boot pressed against a young man's face

as he is bleeding, bound, gagged and lay flat on the bed of a moving truck. Next to him

is another young man whose face we cannot see. All we hear is the creaking of the truck

as it rolls down a dirt round in an unspecified Mexican town.

All in one shot, the camera slowly pans up and moves into the cab of the truck as the sun

beams in over the horizon. It's a beautiful shot and I couldn't help but be reminded of

how film limits our knowledge of what's going on based on what we see. Only minutes

earlier we were looking at a grisly scene and now, through the front window, the scene

appears as innocent as anything else. Innocence as it turns out, is at the heart of this

film as the fate of the two boys, and many other young children in Mexico like them, are

to become the story of Heli.