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It was all too much for a few audience members, who walked out. The Hollywood Reporter called the film "an austere glumfest of stomach-churning sadism and lowlife misery porn," while Variety described it as "accomplished but singularly unpleasant." Others, though, drew comparisons to "City of God" and "Amores Perros" -- artful and powerful depictions of violence in Latin America. "Heli" follows last year's Mexican Cannes contender "Post Tenebras Lux" by Carlos Reygadas, a more surreal but thematically similar response to the drug trade violence that has caused at least 70,000 killings since 2006. Escalante, who has worked as an assistant director for Reygadas, defended the film's depiction of violence. He shoots it in a manner that's the antithesis of Hollywood -- through unblinking scenes that create a sense of detachment but also offer no escape from the horror on show. "If I'm going to show violence, I'm going to give it the weight it should have," the director said. "In a moral way, I think the responsibility is to show violence how it should be -- sad and unpleasant and very dirty and a nightmare. "I couldn't show it halfway," he added. "Hitchcock said, if you don't show it, it's more powerful. I've always remembered that -- but I've tried to do the opposite."
[Associated
Press;
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