El velador

“El Jardin,” a cemetery in the notoriously narco-friendly city of Cualican, Sinaloa, is a bustling necropolis where the literal spoils of drug trafficking find their resting place. The cemetery is filled with lavish, multistoried mausoleums built by cartel kingpins as tribute to their infamy. Natalia Almada, whose last film, El general, was a favorite at Sundance, follows an impassive watchman who minds the ever-expanding graveyard. As workmen construct the next grotesque crypt, lamentations of the bereaved can be heard echoing through the sepulchers. These are not grievings for the kingpins, but for the victims of violence, whose fate is one of the many empty graves.

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