“Monos” is a brutal, poetic descent into the delirium of child soldiers stationed high in the Colombian mountains. Directed by Alejandro Landes, this hypnotic film navigates the borders of war and identity through the perspective of a teenage guerrilla group assigned to guard a hostage.

🎬 Monos	ℹ Movie Details
Country	Colombia
📅 Year	2019
🎭 Genre	War, Drama, Thriller
⏳ Runtime	102 minutes
🎬 Director	Alejandro Landes
⭐ Main Actors	Sofia Buenaventura, Moisés Arias, Julianne Nicholson

Suspended between cloud-covered peaks and damp jungles, the children perform military rituals while gradually dissolving into chaos. With minimal dialogue and visceral cinematography, Landes crafts a sensory experience where the landscape becomes as volatile as the characters.

Sofia Buenaventura brings haunting sensitivity to her role as “Rambo,” caught between loyalty and self-awareness, while Moisés Arias’s intense presence escalates the group’s breakdown. Julianne Nicholson, as the kidnapped American doctor, grounds the film in raw realism and survival instinct.

Mica Levi’s eerie, sparse score pulses like an untamed heartbeat, underlining the tension and beauty of a world detached from civilization yet deeply human. There are echoes of Lord of the Flies, but Monos stands alone as a surreal war allegory shaped by Colombia’s historical trauma.

The film resists clear moral lines, showing instead a chaotic and fragmented world where innocence is a fleeting notion. It doesn’t preach or explain; it immerses. The result is disorienting, but intentionally so.

Shot with an international lens but rooted in Latin American landscapes and conflict, Monos finds universality in its particularity. The children’s nicknames—Boom Boom, Smurf, Bigfoot—add to the surreal tone, balancing menace with a disquieting playfulness.

It’s a coming-of-age film where youth is corrupted, not by ideology, but by abandonment. The war is both external and internal, and Landes never lets the viewer forget that the line between them is porous.

Blurring fantasy and nightmare, it refuses to offer comfort or resolution. What’s left is an unforgettable fever dream of adolescence and violence—framed not by ideology, but by the senselessness of power when wielded by those barely old enough to understand it.