Monos

Somewhere on a rainy, isolated mountain peak in an unspecified South American country, during an unspecified conflict live a group of child soldiers with code names like: Dog; Rambo and Smuf. They are tasked with watching over an American hostage. Early in the film their squad commander, a griselled looking man of diminutive stature, arrives on horseback and tasks the children with looking after a milk cow. The scene sets the bizarre fable-like tone to the film. Those used to holywood may assume that the American hostage is the focal point of the film, but she is instead a rather minor character in a film and certainly no hero. Often funny, often heartbreaking, sometimes harrowing, the film is more about morally ambiguous characters than it is about heroism. The stunningly captured scenery plays a central role, and splits the film into two acts. The first of which takes place in a wet, cold remote mountain top above the clouds, our amusingly named protagonists play the role of olympians, toying with the life of their hostage, and causing mischief. A sudden turn of events sends the action into the jungle; hot, sticky and claustrophobic. The film is full of literary references: heart of darkness, and most obviously lord of the flies; the imaginary somewhere-in-south-america setting is reminiscent of magic realism. The most absurd elements of the film are sometimes the ones that are based in reality, such as the 4 foot squad sergeant, who is played, not by a professional actor, but by an actual (ex) Farc child soldier. Although the film is shot in Columbia the political setting of the film is never explained, and is never discussed, the children’s mission is absurd; but maybe that is the point: war, and the use of children as soldiers, is not only horrible, but absurd to the point of being beyond belief.