In ‘Salvador,’ a father undertakes the mission of solving his daughter’s brutal murder, which becomes a subject of highly politicized agendas and conspiracies. Salvador Aguirre, aka Salva, loses his estranged daughter, Milena, to an attack in the aftermath of a violent street riot between right-wing and left-wing extremists. The latter was a member of the Neo-nazi group, White Souls. As a result, her death, which happens in tandem with an immolation attack on a police officer at the hands of the white supremacist organization, becomes a polarizing topic in the city.
As answers continue to evade the authorities, Salva takes matters into his own hands and ventures into the same bigoted circles his daughter traversed in order to dig his way to the truth. While he’s expecting to uncover a crime connected to the city’s growing political unrest, a different troubling revelation awaits him on the other side. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Milena’s Death Becomes a Tool for Right-Wing Manipulation
Milena’s death arrives early in the story and shapes the rest of the narrative moving forward. For the protagonist, death is a devastating loss that becomes the center of Salva’s world. He’s desperate to understand his estranged daughter’s life, how and why she ended up where she did, and why exactly someone targeted her for murder. However, the optics of the situation turn the case into something else for the other parties involved. For the White Souls, the Neo-nazi group Milena was loyal to co-opt the tragedy to promote their own agenda. They declare, without evidence and investigation, that the person behind Milena’s death is someone of Arab descent.
This helps them push an anti-immigration and white supremacist agenda, which hinges upon people’s capacity to feel empathy for the death of a young woman, regardless of her bigoted political ideologies. The fact that the police remain consistently unable to catch the real killer behind the attack further helps their agenda. The White Souls can simply claim that the authorities are intentionally overlooking Milena’s case because she’s a young nazi woman killed by a person of color, making manipulative arguments about reverse racism, discrimination against Nazis. The scariest part of it all is that even Salva, who tries to distance himself from the Nazism ideology, falls for this propaganda briefly. Nonetheless, the truth eventually comes out in the open.
Milena’s Death Was a Result of Gender-Based Violence
The nature of Milena’s life and her political affiliations initially make it seem like her death must have had something to do with her loyalty to the White Souls. Before arriving at the hospital where she was ultimately killed, the young woman was a part of the riot happening in the streets between two political extremist groups. Therefore, she can’t be an innocent victim who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s always a strong possibility that the people who killed her did so as an extension of the fight that started on the bridge. If it’s someone from the other side, it can be seen as an act of revenge, while it could be an instance of internal foul play or assassination if another member of the White Souls committed the murder.
In the end, the killer ends up belonging to the latter group. However, his motivations remain unexpected and outside of the purview of the narrative Salva has been internalizing this entire time. Mateo, the paramedic’s former neighbor and his daughter’s friend, is the one who killed Milena. The murder was a hate-fueled homicide committed by the killer because he deemed it his responsibility to punish Milena for what he considered to be crimes against him. Mateo is an incel who spends most of his time on online manosphere forums, blaming the female population for his own problems and insecurities. This ideology of his extended to his personal life as well.
The only reason Mateo befriends Milena and becomes a part of her support system is that he wants to control her and exploit her for his own advantage. He even manages to sleep with her once, but his true intentions always lie in owning and controlling the woman to the fullest. Therefore, he grew resentful when Milena started dating another man, Nacho. Afterward, through his misogynistic incel ideologies, he came to the conclusion that the other woman had betrayed him by using him and refusing to give him what he truly wanted. As such, he takes it upon himself to “punish” Milena by brutally murdering her. He’s so delusionally convinced of his moral high ground in this matter that he even records the murder so that he can have video proof of what he considers to be his biggest achievement. Ultimately, this is what becomes his downfall.
Read More: Salvador Ending Explained: Does Salva Save Mateo’s Life? Why?
