This is an extraordinary South American film that was financed by multiple countries with funds contributed by various institutions but mainly shot in Colombia. It is effectively a case of activism by film, with the cause in this instance being the horrific tragedy of child or teenage soldiers. The film itself is free of ideology and non-specific to any country so it can be said to represent all armed insurgencies which employ child soldiers. Under the direction of Alejandro Landes, it is also very effective and one can only imagine the rigors the cast and crew must have endured to make this.

Somewhere amidst the mountains, a small cell of teenage soldiers live and train together. The group, known as Monos, call each other by assigned codenames and though they are part of a larger revolutionary organization, they largely fend for themselves. They receive orders by radio and occasionally an adult known as the Messenger visits them to deliver supplies, train them and give instructions. Their main responsibility is to keep safe a female prisoner who we later learn is an American that the organization is keeping as a hostage. During one visit, the Messenger leaves a cow with the group so that they can have milk but instructs them that it is a loan and they must keep it safe. However after a drunken celebration, one of them wildly shoots his automatic rifle and accidentally kills the cow. Wracked by guilt, the leader of the group, Wolf, shoots himself. The group decides to keep the truth from the leadership of the organization and blame the loss of the cow on Wolf. This would mark only the first of many forms of insubordination.

It’s a little difficult to understand why any organization like this would leave a cell of basically child soldiers to operate by themselves like this, but this is apparently based on real research. The person who plays the Messenger helped train the child actors and was himself a child soldier in Columbia. The result is pretty much what you would expect when you give children weapons and give them a modicum of military training yet in the end they are still children. They clearly have some skills and can be highly motivated when fired up. But they are also easily distracted and resort to doing dangerous acts to have fun when left without adult supervision. They develop a brutal tribalistic culture of their own and have difficulty managing their emotions and lusts and have absolutely no compunctions about killing people. Much of the film also covers the experiences of the hostage, known to them as the Doctora. The children appear to believe that they are being kindly towards her but she herself eventually understands that they are her enemies and children or not, realizes how pointless it is to feel sorry for them.

The film doesn’t try too hard to be literal as I think it glosses over some of the difficulties of living in such remote areas. They somehow don’t have to worry about limited ammunition for their guns for example. But it is very thorough in exploring the many issues and concerns when it comes to such groups. When the Monos finally rebel against the Messenger, as they inevitably must, we get an idea that this how splinter factions of insurgent groups get started. When one of them tries to run away and comes across a family living in a remote homestead in the jungle, the tragic sequence of events that follows shows us how the group can grow and the cycle is perpetuated. Most chilling of all is that it forces us to confront the inherent moral quandary of having to deal with the threat of such groups. It feels wrong to employ deadly force on them when they really are just children. Yet no one can deny how dangerous they are as they are perfectly happy to kill you.

This is a tough film to watch but if anything I believe it actually understates the horror. Real-life accounts of such experiences are much more rife with injuries, mutilations and abuses of all kinds. In any case, this is an excellent film made in service of a worthy cause.