Monos

dir. Alejandro Landes 2019 Argentina/Netherlands/Germany/Sweden/Colombia 102 min.
Special Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival 2019, Panorama - Berlinale International Film Festival 2019
The film's protagonists are teenage guerrillas guarding an American hostage in the mountains of South America, amidst phenomenally filmed, luscious and wild landscapes. They are given their orders by a mysterious "Organization".


In a remote mountaintop setting somewhere in Latin America, a rebel group of teenage commandos bearing ​noms de guerre​ like Rambo, Smurf, Bigfoot, Wolf and Boom-Boom perform military training exercises while watching over a prisoner (Julianne Nicholson) and a conscripted milk cow for a shadowy force known only as ​The Organization​. After an ambush drives the squadron into the jungle, fracturing their intricate bond, the mission begins to collapse.

Director Alejandro Landes (​Porfirio,​ ​Cocalero)​ examines the chaos and fog of war from the unique perspective of adolescence, banding together a diverse young cast of seasoned professionals (including ​Hannah Montana'​s Moisés Arias) and untrained neophytes thrust into an unforgiving, irrational and often surreal environment where anything can happen — even peace.

Other movies from the cycle UW: FILM PICTURES OF POPCULTURE WINTER SEMESTER 2023/24