El Sicario Room 164

[Vanya Lamunyon]

Thefilm's subject is an anonymous Ciudad Jurez sicario known to have killed hundreds. An expert in torture and kidnapping, he was employed by Mexican drug cartels and the Chihuahua State Police simultaneously.[2] In the film, he recounts his story to the camera inside the very hotel room he once used to hold and torture kidnapped victims, his face concealed by a black mesh hood. Using a marker and notepad, he illustrates his career of crime, murder, abduction, and torture.There exists a $250,000 bounty on his life.[3]

The term sicario goes back to Roman Palestine, where a Jewish sect, the Sicarii, used concealed daggers (sicae) in their murders of Romans and their supporters. In modern language, a sicario is a professional killer or a hit man.

In an anonymous motel room on the U.S./Mexico border, a Ciudad Juarez hitman speaks. He has killed hundreds of people and is an expert in torture and kidnapping. He was simultaneously on the payroll of the Mexican drug cartels and a commander of the Chihuahua State Police. There is currently a $250,000 contract on his life and he lives as a fugitive, though he has never been charged with a crime in any country. With his face obscured by a black mesh hood, he tells his story to the camera inside the very motel room he once used to hold and torture kidnapped victims. Aided only by a magic marker and notepad, which he uses to illustrate and diagram his words, the sicario describes, in astounding detail, his life of crime, murder, abduction and torture.

"The sicario never boasts about what he does," announces the anonymous ex-gangster who tells his story in El Sicario, Room 164. But the man shows more than a little pride in his professionalism as he recounts his former life as a torturer and murderer. Indeed, the former sicario's self-esteem is one of the qualities that makes his story credible.

Yet the documentary's back story bolsters its credibility. The movie is based on a 2009 Harper's magazine article by Charles Bowden, a New Mexico-based journalist who's written extensively about the region's violent drug trade. And both Bowden and Rosi say they're utterly convinced that their unnamed source, now a fugitive, was indeed a sicario -- a top-level assassin, named for a 2,000-year-old Jewish sect that killed Romans and their allies in occupied Judea.

E.S. speaks directly to the camera, illustrating his lecture by jotting diagrams and stick-figure drawings in a large notebook. Rosi periodically shoots from over the killer's shoulder to provide a better view of these. Sometimes E.S. acts out the specifics of kidnappings and tortures, at least one of which, he says, happened in this very motel room. A few glimpses of the outside punctuate what is otherwise a one-man show.

The stories are horrific, if laced with Tarantino-style humor. E.S. describes one victim who was tortured almost to death, only to be saved by a call from el patron. The man was too far gone to be revived by the gangsters, so a doctor was called to resuscitate him. The physician did his job well, but the reprieve was temporary; later, el patron called back to countermand his order.

E.S. also provides inside information, believable if uncorroborated, about the DEA practice of microchipping its informants; the various messages communicated by different ways of mutilating a corpse; and the dangers of being an attractive young woman who gets too "ambitious" during an affair with a narco boss.

The movie was shot in a single room for its subject's protection. But the effect is also to simulate the claustrophobic menace that such a place must hold for the victim of a cartel kidnapping. E.S., and the viewers, get out alive. But with a $250,000 price on his head, the man's safety is by no means guaranteed. If El Sicario, Room 164 plays like a communique from the land of the dead, that reflects E.S.'s likely fate as much as that of his victims.

As I read arguments against this as a rape scene, I see a lot of extra information that is not exactly part of the scene. Villeneuve is a filmmaker that uses all tools at his disposal, and every choice he makes on what to show us matters. Here are the key details presented:

Whether it was rape or not, it's strongly suggested to be. The most important evidence in this scene is the details that Villeneuve carefully chooses to show us, and I would argue that few other things matter more when interpreting this. The point of the scene isn't just to show us that they do waterboarding; it's to show us what else they're willing to do. And it's very scary.

A door opens and we find GUILLERMO, 45, fat, three day stubble, andvery unhappy to be here. His hands are cuffed behind his back. A DEAAGENT holds a bottle of water that Guillermo sucks like an infant.

Alejandro walks toward Guillermo, stands across from him.Places a foot on his chest. Pushes... Hard... Guillermo sways back,like a chopped tree. He moves through frame in slow motion, fallingout of frame.

However, it still appears water-boarding is the most obvious explanation. Whilst we hear muffed grunts during the close-up of the drain at the end, and we notice the unopened water jug, this ignores that for water-boarding to occur the victim will generally have a cloth stuffed into their mouth. This act, along with any other roughhousing Alejandro gives him, would lead to the grunts we hear.

Whilst rape cannot be completely ruled out, it would seem rather out of place. Why would Matt stay and watch? Why would rape lead to more information than torture? If it is rape and torture, again - what would the point of the rape have been?

The 5 gallon water bottle that Alejandro bought into the room, was to continue the process and maybe even wash the vomit down the drain. Standing so close the Guillermo with his legs kicked apart was a sign of Dominance. Nothing sexual regarding rape.

I think the sexual implications are more visual/audio cues tying the torture to rape, that the torture is akin to sexual assault. You're definitely supposed to think about rape when you're watching the implications of torture.

the water boarding explanation is well thought out and certainly fits with matt's comment and the closeup of the drain and the 5 gallon jug. However, Allejandro's positioning relative to Guillermo is unnatural to say the least! And Alejandro's character is enigmatic and unpredictable throughout the movie. i think the filmmakers wish to underscore these unpredictable aspects of Alejandro's character in this scene in order to make him more interesting. They make it fun for the audience to try and interpret what is happening with the clues given much like in pulp fiction where Ving Rhames character says that he's gonna get "medieval" on the rapists' "ass" with a "pair of pliers and a blowtorch"!

In a small, unremarkable ground-floor motel room in the middle of the desert sits a man wearing a black veil over his head. He has the body of a linebacker and in his thick hands holds a sketchbook and brown marker. His voice is unassuming. The black void of his face stares directly at the camera. The viewer soon learns is that this is the Sicario, a professional killer. What follows, in great detail, is his life: how and why he killed, why he left it behind, and the high-priced contract currently out on his life. The motel room, we later find out, was conveniently picked by the Sicario because it was the former stage for torture and murder.

ROSI: I went down there and I spent two days waiting for him. Then I shot one day, and then I spent another two days waiting for him. When he came back, I filmed the other angle, of the sketch book. He went through the whole book again explaining what happened. After that, I had to leave the room.

A Juarez hit man speaks : el sicario ROOM 164 is an eighty-minute documentary about a hit man. He has killed hundreds of people, is an expert in torture and kidnapping, and for many years was a commander of the state police in Chihuahua. He even received some training from the FBI. He has lived in Ciudad Jurez and has moved freely throughout Mexico and the United States. At the moment, there is a contract on his life of $250,000 and he lives as a fugitive, though he is still free and has never been charged with a crime in any country. The film takes place in a motel room on the U.S. / Mexico border. The sicario is highly intelligent, very articulate and all too believable. The film stems from Charles Bowden's essay "The Sicario" published in 2009 in Harper's Magazine

In room 164 of a grubby hotel near the Mexican-American border, a man with a black cloth over his head starts talking about the life he has lived. He provides full details on his 20 years of work for a Mexican drugs baron, shading light on how thoroughly corrupt the local authorities are.

The sicario sits in a chair, in the same motel room where he used to hold his kidnap victims and torture them. He has a black felt pen and a large sketch pad. As he tells his stories, he makes primitive diagrams or lists to emphasize his points.

The sicario tells us that the narcos can buy anything they want and they recognize no borders. He started doing errands for them while he was still in high school. (And drove across the border several times a week, without asking what he might be carrying.)

I wish I could make El Sicario, Room 164 required viewing for anyone who ever laughed at the idea of a Mexican seeking refugee status here in Canada, for the people who work at the Immigration and Refugee Board, and for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

Il protagonista del documentario un ex sicario del cartello della droga messicano, ripreso in una stanza d'albergo al confine tra Messico e Stati Uniti. Il sicario, ripreso con il volto nascosto, racconta in modo dettagliato la sua carriera nel crimine organizzato, la sua esperienza di assassino ed esperto in torture, i rapporti con la polizia dello stato di Chihuahua.

This was a common scene in both movies although it was a bit more fleshed out in the first movie. To refreshen everyone's memory in the first movie they show the detainee and one of Graver's team making the detainee drink from a water bottle and Graver walks in says something like "You old devil you are making sure he drinks a lot" (out of memory so not totally accurate). Soon after you see Benicio Del Toro's character pick up one of those big water containers and walk into the interrogation room. In the room he walks his junk into the detainees face and what happens next is pretty much left to everyone's imagination. Now in Soldado you see the familiar water containers in the beginning when Graver is interrogating a detainee. A lot is again left to the viewers imagination, but there is part where Graver catches the detainee looking at the water containers in fear and Graver says something to the effect of him being afraid of waterboarding, but that is something they do when they can not do torture and them being in Africa kind of makes it an everything goes affair. I kind of assumed from that dialogue that they had not been used on the detainee yet and were not ultimately used at all. How did you guys interprete this scene and what Graver was saying? It kind of makes it seem that they might've used the water in the first movie since they were located on US soil for waterboarding, but then again I assume making the guy drink a lot doesn't make it any more or less effective so what was up with that and what was the idea with the whole water thing.

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