This extraordinary, engulfing documentary explores the human cost of crime and corruption in Mexico through the personal stories of two women. Adela, a clown in a circus, and Miriam, an airport worker falsely accused of corruption, both fell victim to a social ecosystem that ruthlessly preys on the weak. We hear their stories through narrations that are bruised by the traumas they have survived.

Miriam, along with her colleagues at Cancún airport, found herself separated from her child and imprisoned far from home. Her state-appointed lawyer explained that she was what was commonly referred to as “a payer” – someone who pays for the crimes of others. The prison, she discovered, was a “self-governing” facility, run by a cartel as a money-making racket. Adela, meanwhile, is haunted by the abduction of her teenage daughter 10 years before.

The words of the women run through the film like still-fresh scars; they are superimposed over footage that gives a poetic resonance to the pathos of the stories. The lashing storms that give the film its evocative title are a potent visual metaphor throughout the picture. Ordinary people such as Miriam and Adela are helpless in the face of corruption that is as relentless and uncaring as a force of nature.