MovieChat Forums > Meth Storm (2017) Discussion > Wow (spoilers)

Wow (spoilers)

posted 6 years ago by tyboulder2 (101)
2 replies | jump to latest

I watch a lot of documentaries, and it’s been a while since one like this came tearing through like Meth Storm. It’s an unyieldingly close examination of a family affected by methamphetamine abuse. There’s a new class of meth coming in from Mexico and it’s cheap, potent, impossible to contain, and it affects everyone in the communities it can get its claws into.

That’s how it seems anyway, and I don’t know enough to despute this documentary’s claims. However, reminiscent of how the doc Oxyana covered the opioid crisis in West Virginia, both of these documentaries make use of not providing a wider shot of the community at large—in order to keep your attention on the issue at hand. I think that’s a valid (and perhaps maybe unconscious choice), but in the effort to raise awareness, the “real” day-to-day goings on of the people who live there are mostly ignored. (Like the people who do work to provide things like basic infrastructure needs, general social affairs and services, and whatever industry, etc. exists there.)

So the doc may hit a little stronger than it would, if presented in a more balanced context— but I don’t think the directors were aiming for that, nor should they necessarily have tied to. I’d like to see more comments on this movie. I give it a solid 8.5/10.

[–] TalkinPikchorBox (2250) 6 years ago

Felt like I caught aids just watching this. I’m for the wall now.

[–] tyboulder2 (101) 5 years ago

Yeah, it’s a very unique movie. It’s rare that a filmmaker(s) can get close enough to their subjects to witness these types “day-to-day” behaviors in anyone, much less a group of people that knows they’re breaking the law—along with everything else that accompanies addiction, too.

I didn’t remember writing my little review above, which leads to the worst kind of criticism, the “I know what they’re trying to say, but I’d word it better.” I think I was also a little critical of the movie’s approach, because just recently I was meaning to watch this again. Not something I do very often.

If this were 800-900 A.D., a wall might seriously work. But once a drug is small enough, potent enough and cheap enough, there’s little society can do. Look at the horrors we’re still reaping from the way we handled the “crack epidemic” in the 80’s. We destroyed a part of society trying to fix it. That could easily happen again. The only efforts that matter, IMHO, have to do with preventitive help, as in, What’s causing people to turn to drugs? Working on that is 10X more effective that treating the symptoms.

People generally will not pick a drug over their own life (even if things are only “mostly okay, most of the time”). Drugs like Fentanyl and Carfentanil look more threatening than this new meth to me. But communities and families are stronger than any drug’s reach, in general, IMHO.