Monos  ★★★

DON’T you hate when you can’t understand a film?

On one level the 2019 Columbian drama Monos is obviously a loose adaptation of William Golding’s novel The Lord of the Flies.

But I’m sure it also provides an allegory for Columbia itself, but I don’t know enough about the country to understand it fully.

Okay, fine, I could google it; but that kind of defeats the purpose of reviewing a film. You should go by the impression it leaves on you personally, as opposed to somebody else’s interpretation.

The impression Monos left on me was mostly one of disappointment.

Yes, it’s well directed by Alejandro Landes, edited and photographed, sometimes with glorious visuals of mist-covered mountain-tops.

The performances are also energetic from a young cast that would have been pushed to extremes in the desolate, cold and wet location.

But this film was Colombia’s entry for the Oscars and had garnered plaudits for being powerful and inventive…’Apocalypse Now on ‘shrooms’ was one description.

Perhaps it was my lack of context, but Monos came across as simply an interesting take on Golding’s novel, marred by a script that seems to constantly repeat the same conflict and resolution and doesn’t provide a through-line for any character to engages the audience.

It’s set on a remote Colombian mountaintop amongst a group of teenagers, known as the Monos, who appear to be part of a resistance movement. They are guarding a hostage and trying to fill in their days as best as possible while awaiting further orders. They are known only by names like Rambo, Wolf, Lady, Smurf, Bigfoot and Dog.

Every now and then they are visited by a commander, the Messenger, who takes them through military drills but doesn’t seem to provide them with any instructions other than to keep doing the same thing. The boredom inevitably leads to more and more child-like behavior and struggles within the growing factions of the group.

Two of the Monos, Lady and Wolf, request permission to enter a romantic relationship, which the Messenger allows. At one stage he also leaves them with a milk cow named Shakira that they are told to protect with their lives.

This is all starting to sound a little silly, I know, but the drama and violence ramps up when somebody is accidentally shot and the hostage tries to escape.

Slowly we start to gain an understanding of who the hostage is and the motivations behind the resistance, but it’s a difficult slog and ultimately not totally worth the effort.