Guided Reflection

 My Thoughts:

   

     For this documentary project, I decided to view the film Cartel Land by Matthew Heineman and I will say that this film provides so much to think about. The film itself was well shot and a specific scene really got to me at one point. It was specifically a scene near the end when the autodefensas leadership had decided to merge into the government's plans and become the rural self-defense group. They had now turned their back on Mireles and the group started to break apart here. They held interviews with the former autodefensa leadership where Beltrãn Torres talked about how the government has supplied them with new equipment and new weapons. 
    

But, within this segment, they go on to talk to another (former) leader of the group who was seen earlier in the film Nicolas Sierra Santana nicknamed El Gordo. In his interview after joining the rural defense group he straight up admits that he is a member of Los Viagras which is a cartel the enemy that they had been fighting. 

    This scene filled me with a combination of anger, disappointment, and sadness. To see the journey that the self-defense group had gone through during the film and seeing it all be thrown away was extremely disheartening. The people that they were fighting against had now infected and invaded a group whose cause had seemed just. It seemed as if they had just planned to use this cause as a front the entire time for them to grow their own personal greed and gain a platform for it. It's a reoccurring theme that disheartened me at the end and seeing the cycle of violence truly has no end.