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THE VISION OF DRUG TRAFFICKING IN FILM

JULIO A. GUZMAN MERCADO

ARTICLE 2

INGS-201 INTR TO INF RES & WRIT SKILL

UNIVERSIDAD ANA G. MENDEZ

MELBA AYALA
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THE VISION OF DRUG TRAFFICKING IN FILM

I. REFERENCE

Abad Faciolince, Héctor. Fragmentos de amor furtivo. Bogotá: Alfaguara, 1998

Agier, Michel y Odile Hoffmann. “Pérdida de lugar, despojo y urbanización. Un estudio

sobre los desplazados en Colombia.” Desplazados, migraciones internas y

reestructuraciones territoriales. Fernando Cubides y Camilo Domínguez. Eds. Bogotá: CES,

Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1999

Alape, Arturo. Sangre ajena. Bogotá: Planeta, 2000.

Álvarez Gardeazábal, Gustavo. Cóndores no entierran todos los días. Bogotá: Oveja Negra,

1985.

II. INTRODUCTION

When on December 2, 1993, the Elite Police Force completed a 499-day operation to find

and kill Pablo Escobar, the leader of the cartel Medellín, the Colombian government

celebrated a temporary triumph by defeating who had sown chaos in the country through

fear and terrorism1. To speak of the violence in Colombia is to go through its entire history.

This is a country of contradictions: he has experienced all kinds of violence in the midst of

an apparent stability socioeconomic. This contradiction, for historians and economists,

makes it difficult to study of the violence that has occurred since the last decades of the

20th century, due to several factors: Colombia is economically one of the most stable

countries in Latin America, has experienced growth since the mid-twentieth century and

has not. East optimism grew with the persecution, death or imprisonment of the main
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THE VISION OF DRUG TRAFFICKING IN FILM

drug traffickers from the Medellín, Cali and Bogotá cartels.

Focuses on the narrative that represents violence as problematic national as a result of the

impact of drug trafficking, as well as in the comparative analysis of two novels that have

been made into a movie. In the research process I have found that literary criticism refers to

these works under different names: the novel of the vicariate, the picaresque, the drug

trafficking novel or simply literature and drug trafficking. However, as can be seen in these

denominations, there is a trend, in the narrative and cinema, to reduce this violence to the

consequences of the actions of the hitmen, the drug trafficker of the Medellín cartel, and the

production and trafficking of the cocaine. Likewise, even though there is a wide corpus of

works on drug trafficking, critical studies have focused on the analysis of three novels that

present this face of drug violence.

III. HYPOTHESIS

This work requires an approach to the history of violence and drug trafficking in Colombia

to understand its complexity and the conditions that generated, as well as the interest of

Colombian writers and filmmakers to capture this conflict in their productions. For this

reason, I resort to an interdisciplinary methodology that analyzes the phenomenon of drug

violence from different perspectives: historical, political, social, cultural and economic.

Therefore, in the next chapter, "Colombia, a history of violence", I present a review of the

history of violence in Colombia and a contextualization of the trajectory of drug trafficking

in Colombia, its beginnings, boom, decline and resurgence, as well as its main actors. It is
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THE VISION OF DRUG TRAFFICKING IN FILM

It is important to note that terrorism and violence, private death squads, hit men and social

problems are not generated by, nor are they born with drug trafficking. Violence has roots

in historical, political, economic and social events that occurred they are related to drug

trafficking but also have deeper origins. East historical tour is also important to offer a

context to the analysis of the works literary and cinematic that feed on this complex reality.

IV. JOURNALISTIC RESEARCH

Colombia has a history of violence that precedes drug trafficking, but the

Narco-terrorist violence, in particular, has impacted and fragmented the entire nation, point

that writers and filmmakers take on the task of recreating this era, taking up historical

events and characters. They explore new ways to communicate that violence in terms of

aesthetics, style and theme. Thus, new strategies of representation given the need to

incorporate the complexity of the causes that lead to this country to be recognized

internationally as one of the most violent in the world, and to present the large scale that

having any solution would imply.

V. ANALYSIS

The works literary books and films about drug trafficking are the answer to the horror sown

in Colombia, in the midst of an endless struggle to control or direct the country's politics,

and for the desire to ascend economically and socially. With this work, we will be able to

travel the trajectory on drug trafficking, and understand how this issue has been

incorporated into the Colombian narrative and cinema. Through this particular context, it

will also be possible to arrive at a detailed understanding of the range of literary and filmic
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THE VISION OF DRUG TRAFFICKING IN FILM

expressions that the "cultural producers" have within their reach, towards the end of the

20th century, and how art and life nurture each other.

VI. CONCLUSION

Productions most outstanding audiovisuals that present different facets In their productions,

the directors have captured, both on the big screen and in the girl, this problem with

fictional documentaries, fiction films or the adaptation of outstanding novels on drug

trafficking. In them the interest is evident of the filmmakers for bringing to the public a

more realistic view of the events they occurred at this time, without becoming an apology

for terrorism and chaos imposed by drug traffickers in this country.