Una película de policías

Man nannte sie „the love patrol“, Teresa und Montoya, Polizisten in Mexico City, privat ein Paar. Doch nicht nur, wie diese beiden zueinander fanden, schildert Ruizpalacios in seinem überraschenden Polizeifilm. Vielmehr unternimmt er die auf mehreren Ebenen angesiedelte Untersuchung einer übel beleumundeten Institution am Beispiel ihrer Fußsoldaten - die behandelt werden wie Dreck und sterben wie die Fliegen. Die Erzählweise wechselt dabei zwischen Spiel- und Dokumentarfilm, ein Making-of wird mitgeliefert und die Reflexionsmetaebene ergibt sich zwanglos. Die komplexe Struktur der Inszenierung ist die Lupe, unter der Korruption als systemisch sichtbar wird. (Alexandra Seitz)

What is realism anymore when it comes to law enforcement on screen, after 100-plus years of representations in film and television? Alonso Ruizpalacios takes a characteristically imaginative approach to the problem of portraying the police, looking at two cops patrolling the millions-strong metropolis of Mexico City. A tag-along documentary style opens the film as each cop walks us through his job, talking to the camera, which often seems to be impossibly well placed. Just when the behind-the-scenes conventions might become routine, Ruizpalacios lifts off the lid: the two actors who have been portraying the two officers (who are also a couple) talk about playing their roles. Yet another cross-section of reality emerges through the hardboiled testimony of the two actual cops who are the basis of the characters. Spiking the film are snippets of Lalo Schifrin, which evoke a whole era of scuzzy-glam policing in cinema. But instead of just playing a clever meta-cinematic game, the film lucidly elaborates on the performance of authority that goes into policing – literally, embodying the law in human form – and lays bare the insidious, chilling corruption that entangles both sides of the cop-and-criminal equation in Mexico. Leaping ahead with his latest feature, Ruizpalacios accomplishes a sociocultural excavation of the reality that literally governs our daily lives. (Nic Rapold)

Alonso Ruizpalacios: GÜEROS (2014), MUSEO (2018), AQUÍ EN LA TIERRA (2018, TV Serie), NARCOS: MÉXICO (2018, TV Serie)