Direction: Alejandro Landes
Country: Colombia
Colombian-Ecuadorian Alejandro Landes is definitely a director whose work deserves exploration. Even if not as impressive as Porfirio (2011), his previous art-house drama, Monos is a beautifully photographed war drama-thriller loosely inspired on the acclaimed novels Lord of the Flies by William Golding and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The story, co-written by Landes and Alexis Dos Santos, revolves around a group of Colombian teenage guerrillas provisionally stationed at a remote mountaintop, where they watch over a single hostage, the foreign ‘Doctora' Sara Watson (Julianne Nicholson). These kids belong to The Organization, a mysterious political faction that, from time to time, sends them The Messenger (Wilson Salazar, a former FARC soldier). Besides supervising the place and stimulating their intensive training, this man always carries fresh orders and supplies.
The eight young soldiers use signals to communicate and exclusively respond to their names of war. They are Wolf (Julian Giraldo), the squad leader; Lady (Karen Quintero), the former’s girlfriend; Dog (Paul Cubides), who accidentally shoots the milking cow entrusted to the group; the inattentive Smurf (Deiby Rueda), probably the youngest among them, who unintentionally conceded an opportunity for the prisoner to escape; Boom Boom (Esneider Castro), the bravest and strongest of the soldiers; Big Foot (Moisés Arias), a domineering warrior who likes doing things his own way; Swede (Laura Castrillón), an emotionally fragile girl desperately in need of love; and Rambo (played by actress Sofía Bonaventura), a misfit who dreams about abandoning the squad and that miserable life.
There’s some poignancy in this study of military subjugation, survival and distress caused by isolation and duty, but Landes, possessing a formidable command of mood within an unadorned style, seems only to be concerned with the experience of the members of the group, leaving many things unexplained around them. Disarmingly simplistic at a first sight, Monos has its fine moments of raw intensity, hiding more complex nuances in between the lines. It’s intriguing enough to worth a look, but in the end, not much of it sticks with us.
