backwater

It had about three houses, and right in the middle there was a sign over a building saying “Casino,” and it had a slot machine in, so it was a real American backwater.

Once in Kerala, the film whizzes through a checklist of things a layperson might associate with the tourist-favourite state - its famous backwaters, the ubiquitous coconut trees, toddy, elephants, and Onam, its most popular festival.

The exact coordinates of this backwater are a bit hazy, but Storyteller 2 helpfully pinpoints the locale as “a place where being from somewhere is who you are.”

This process is known as pyrolysis and takes place in facilities akin to homemade pressure cookers, often in rural backwaters.

Edgar Veytia’s transgressions came while he was the top cop in Nayarit, a small Pacific Coast state that evolved from a sleepy backwater to one of Mexico’s most violent cartel battlegrounds.