Directed By Alejandro Landes

Starring – Sofia Buenaventura, Moises Arias, Julianne Nicholson

The Plot – Teenage commandos perform military training exercises by day and indulge in youthful hedonism by night, an unconventional family bound together under a shadowy force know only as The Organization. After an ambush drives the squadron into the jungle, both the mission and the intricate bonds between the group begin to disintegrate.

Rated R for violence, adult language, some sexual content and drug use.

POSITIVES

– Entrancing photography. For a film involving such savage brutality, as well as an overall animalistic means of survival for these characters, “Monos” captures some of the most beautiful shot compositions and movements of any film that I have seen this year. Its reputation is built in a style of direction that isn’t afraid to get its lens dirty, tracking our characters through a barrage of bushes and free-flowing rapids that easily immerse us into the heat of the scene, thanks to the camera’s physical interactions with each of these properties. In addition to this, the bold capture of mountainous clouds dominating the focus of the screen that are being portrayed at eye level for the setting offers a subtle allusion to the idea that these kids are a pawn in the bigger game of life that is passing them by. It values them as nothing more than a spoke in the wheel to someone’s devious plan, and gives us plenty of social commentary in its imagery long before it mumbles even a single word of dialogue.

– Buzzworthy performances. Considering Nicholson is the only actress of familiarity to me in the film, the gripping nature and emotional resonance of this mostly youthful cast was one that opened my eyes, and gave coherence to the idea that even kid actors should be valued as equals to their adult counterparts. Because the camera work gives us several long takes to focus on their facial likenesses, these kids are asked to convey their internal registries with nothing more than what they can do with their faces, and it outlines some general dissention in the ranks for what initially feels like a paradise for all of them. On the subject of Nicholson, it’s the anguish and exhaust that she wears continuously for her character that dominates our time with her, giving her a performance that asks her to be every bit as physical as it is psychological. This woman goes through no shortage of grueling punishment, and even considering films are based on acting, I can imagine the emotional scars of resistance that Nicholson invested throughout this film will have a presence within her career regardless of how many movies she dominates like she does this one.

– Vital character study. When you start to attack Landes’ film beneath its surface level of war, torture, and longing, you start to piece together a social narrative that feeds into the ages old debate of nature versus nurture, and it’s one that leads to some truly gut-wrenching results. Because these are youths left on their own to survive and defend, we start to not only see the immaturity of their decisions weighing heavily on the rest of them, but also the consequences that emerge when rules and reform are nowhere to be found in the scope of stability. As the film progresses, these kids and their surroundings evolve to a more animalistic distinguishing, outlining them as a product of their environment because of the conventional things that their lives lack that starts to weigh heavily on the dynamic of their characters. Landes casts grave importance on the irresponsible decisions made for kids that eventually define them for better or worse, and in the same vein as 1995’s “Kids”, fleshes out a cohesive narrative that serves as a cautionary tale to anyone who doesn’t comprehend how important healthy influences are in the absorbing mental capacity of someone so inexperienced with the ferocity of life.

– Enthralling sound mixing. You can take beautiful and exotic scenery and use them to visually tell a story, but without articulate sound that invests weight into the heat of the environment, these places don’t allow us to immerse ourselves in it, but thankfully “Monos” doesn’t have this problem in the slightest. Using typical noises like birds, crickets, and weatherly influences to the echoing of the character in frame, the film’s on-location approach to its production value grants us an inescapable aspect of weight within the narrative that increases in volume the closer the kids get to society. It grants the audibility a level of believability that lesser films skim over without valuing the importance of their influence. The lesser the influence that post-production has on a film, the better the integrity for consistency that a film maintains, and for 97 minutes of film, Landes constant reminder of the world surrounding this madness is one that proves vital in establishing this nightmarish fever dream that he surrenders us to.

– Why kids? Using a younger presence when playing adult games is certainly nothing new to cinema, but why it works exceptionally in this particular story is the way a group so young gives everything to fight for something that isn’t clearly evident to them. This gives the film a tragic aspect of its storytelling that is present long before the hail of gunfire reigns down around them, granting an uncomfortable attention to the audience that wouldn’t feel as important with older characters. When it’s kids, there’s always a sense of moral ambiguity just beneath the surface of this invisible safe zone that we create in our heads, and this gives this film in particular an unpredictable sense of evolution that keeps the audience constantly on its toes to see if it explores the depth that an adult narrative does. The good and bad news? It totally does.

– Mica Levi. If you don’t already know this amazing composer from her mesmerizing work in films like “Under the Skin” or “Jackie”, you won’t be able to escape her from this point forward. Levi’s rhythmic trance over the film and its accompanying scenes serves as the conscience for a film so riddled with increasing tension and inescapable sorrow, to the point where it develops this suffocating layer of fog that constantly hangs over the heads of our respective characters. What’s important is that Mica’s work rarely feels repetitious or grounded. Instead, her numbers use unconventional sounds like echoing whistles or fuzzy synth to conjure up an evocative experience that echoes for miles inside of the story. The whistle itself foretells an inevitable confrontation that is constantly heading our way, and expands and diverts the longer the track carries out before resolution is met. Because of such, Levi might be the film’s most valuable player, manufacturing atmosphere with instruments in the exact same way a painter adds artistic dimensions to life. It leads to a must-buy composition, as well as an unseen character in the film itself that is constant for far longer than the actors themselves are as a presence.

– Bold cinematography. In addition to the breathtaking capture of the lens that I previously mentioned, the film’s sharp sting of color saturation to a landscape and particular atmospheric item is something that plays heavily into the imbalance constructed from such a moral disposition within the story. For my money, it’s the seafoam green’s that overlooks the unsettling heights of the mountainside, or even the metallic reds that emit themselves from the smoke of enemy fire in the air, that are easily my favorite. Colors by themselves are fine, but the rendering itself is something of three-dimensional outlining that makes them pop with the rested eye without wearing heavy 3D glasses that often take away from the presentation of a movie. Cinematographer Jasper Wolf, an artist responsible for some of the most distinguishing arthouse films of the last five years, accomplishes this entrancing feat, marrying the worlds of reality and fantasy in a way where unorthodox color pallets reflect to the uncertainty that plagues the story and its rambunctious characters.

– Not exploitative. It would be easy for a film like this to get lost in the clutches of its own brutality or adult stakes, but surprisingly everything testing with the material is commanded with enough tasteful class and imagination to fill in the gaps colorfully of expectations. Despite the ratings header above, there is very little profanity in the film, saving the instances when they feel the most naturally flowing with the patterns of human dialogue. For sex, there are two scenes in particular that deal with it in regards to these kids, but with no offensive nudity to shock you out of your enjoyment of the film. In fact, the love sequences themselves are shot similar to the lone drug sequence of the film, in that they are both focused on the reaction, and not necessarily the act itself. It very much transforms these kids, and forces them to grow up a lot quicker than they rightfully should, cementing the importance of this film’s rating in a way that is anything but a tool for extremism.

NEGATIVES

– No protagonist. Easily the biggest problem that “Monos” faces is its lack of characterization that leaves us searching for a familiar face to invest in. Usually it would be Nicholson’s character, for the way she’s held captive, but the film’s lack of personal attention given to scenes of her in isolation feel like a missed opportunity to further flesh out a level of empathy that the screenplay never reaches. In addition to this, none of the kids themselves are attacked from anything other than a surface level, with no backstory or distinguishable traits for us to grip on to. I can understand the desire to place everyone on equal ground to the integrity of the story and camera attention, but without an established home base, these characters don’t gain enough interest to make any of their arcs truly tragic.

– Small problems. There are two things in this regard; one dealing with continuity, and one dealing with lack of resolution from a certain subplot. On the former, Nicholson’s character is beaten down badly in one scene, resulting in a barrage of cuts, bruises, and even a swollen left eye. However, in the following scene directly after it, that swollen eye is gone. In fact, there’s not even a remote sign that the swelling has reduced. It’s completely gone, and there’s no excuse why this would happen in the exact same day. On the latter, without spoiling anything, a group of characters are held at gunpoint in the final three minutes of the film, and we get no resolution or information as to what happened to these characters or their captor. These kinds of things bother me, especially in this case because it’s the climax of the film. It ends the film on a good, but not fully satisfying note, that remains some of the air of momentum because of the lack of attention given to the many plots set-up by these final scenes.

My Grade: 8/10 or A-