Monos - between heaven and hell

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Movie
German title Monos - between heaven and hell
Original title Monos
Country of production Colombia , Argentina , Netherlands , Denmark , Sweden , Germany , Uruguay , USA
original language Spanish , English
Publishing year 2019
length 103 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Alexis Dos Santos ,
Alejandro Landes
script Alexis Dos Santos,
Alejandro Landes
production Fernando Epstein ,
Alejandro Landes,
Santiago Zapata ,
Cristina Landes
music Mica Levi
camera Jasper Wolf
cut Ted Guard ,
Yorgos Mavropsaridis ,
Santiago Otheguy
occupation

Monos - Between Heaven and Hell (Original title: Monos ) is a film drama by Alexis Dos Santos and Alejandro Landes , which premiered on January 27, 2019 as part of the Sundance Film Festival . On February 10, 2019, the film was shown for the first time in Germany at the Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section. On August 15, 2019, it was released in Colombian cinemas and in German cinemas on June 4, 2020. The film follows a group of young guerrillas guarding a hostage.

action

In a remote mountain region, eight young guerrilla fighters guard an American hostage whom they only call "Doctora". The name of their unit is Monos, and the fighters call themselves Patagrande, Rambo, Leidi, Sueca, Pitufo, Perro, Bum Bum; their leader is called Lobo. They receive their instructions from their superordinate organization by radio or by visiting a messenger.

On his next visit the messenger gives them an important assignment. They are supposed to take care of the milk cow Shakira, which the organization has received on loan. In addition, Lobo asks permission to enter into a love affair with Leidi, which is granted to him. After the following celebration, Perro shoots in the air for a long time, killing the cow. Lobo feels that he has failed as a leader and commits suicide. To protect Perro, the group claims that Lobo killed Shakira and committed suicide as a result. Patagrande is chosen as the new leader.

One day their base is attacked by the military, whereupon a long victorious battle develops. Since their previous location became known, they were ordered to move it to the rainforest. When Doctora is supervised by Pitufo there, she manages to escape. Leidi wants to inform the organization about this by radio, but Patagrande prevents this by destroying the device. He then proclaimed that Monos would henceforth be independent of the organization. The group can recapture Doctora and chains her.

The messenger visits the group's location and discovers that Patagrande and Leidi have entered into a relationship without asking permission. He forces the group members to denounce each other, whereupon Pitufo confesses that Perro killed the cow and declared Patagrande Monos independent. The messenger takes Patagrande with him so that he can answer to the highest command. On the way there, Patagrande shoots the messenger and returns to Monos. Pitufo is shackled.

The group begins raiding the area. Rambo cannot cope with the situation and tries to free Pitufo in order to go away with him, but is discovered and has to flee. While the group goes in search of Rambo, Sueca stays behind with Doctora. The hostage can take her guardian by surprise and kill her. Pitufo asks her to free him and take him with her, but she makes off on her own.

Rambo has found shelter with a family, but is found by Monos, who kill his parents and storm the house. It is announced on television that the American engineer Sara Watson escaped her kidnappers. Rambo jumps into the river, is carried away and in the end is picked up by a military helicopter.

production

Staff and funding

Directed by Alexis Dos Santos and Alejandro Landes , who also wrote the script. The Colombian feature film is a loose adaptation of William Golding's Lord of the Flies , but also uses motifs from Aguirre, the Wrath of God . Monos takes place in the dense jungles and misty mountain peaks of northern Colombia. By eliminating the socio-political context, Monos offers an insight into the power potential on the fringes of society and shows an anarchic society shaped by a guerrilla war. The film is a mixture of war film and survival thriller and also has queer references. Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian remarks about the film title Monos , which is the name of the group, this is apparently named after the Mono Grande , the mythical giant ape that allegedly has existed somewhere in South America for centuries. Monos can also be translated simply as "monkey".

Landes was born in Brazil but grew up in Ecuador and Colombia and lives in New York. His parents left Medellín in the 1980s to escape the violence. The director explains: "Colombia has been ravaged by wars for so many decades. I've seen violence come from the left and I've seen violence come from the right. My grandfather's favorite place in the world, his farm, for them he worked his whole life and became the headquarters of the cruelest right wing paramilitary group, the AUC. " Landes did research for the film and visited Colombian reintegration camps to meet adult rebels who had laid down their arms and wanted to enter civil society. The film provides a snapshot of the guerrilla war that has been raging in remote parts of the country for decades. "Today the world is turning to shadow wars, with wars going on in the background," said Landes. "Whether Colombia or Syria and Afghanistan, these are wars with no clear beginning or end, which are fought in secret, everything in the shadows."

The film is a German co-production. The Film- und Medienstiftung NRW granted a grant of 55,000 euros.

Cast, filming and equipment

A bridge over the Samaná River, in whose canyon much of the filming took place

Landes cast the roles of child soldiers with amateur actors. Sofia Buenaventura plays Rambo, a role that was intended to be male and which Landes describes as " post-gender ". In other roles are Julián Giraldo as Lobo, Karen Quintero as Leidi, Laura Castrillón as Sueca, Deiby Rueda as Pitufo, Paul Cubides as Perro and Sneider Castro as Boom Boom. The two professional actors in the film include Moises Arias , who played Patagrande, and Julian Nicholson , who plays Sara Watson, the American child soldier hostage known as "Doctora".

The shooting took place in Colombia, in the National Park Páramo de Chingaza and for four weeks in the jungle around the Samaná river and its canyon in the Antioquia department , five hours southeast of Medellín. It was Land's idea to follow the river in the film in order to give the viewer the feeling of not watching from the bank, but of finding themselves within the river and the conflict. The Colombian national kayak team helped film the rapids. Some pictures were taken on mountain peaks at an altitude of 4,300 meters. A family of gold miners set up the military tents.

Film music, sound design and publishing

The music for the film was composed by the British musician and composer Mica Levi , who had previously only been involved in two feature films in this capacity, Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin and Pablo Larrain's Jackie . Both works had received critical acclaim. The soundtrack album, which includes 15 tracks, was released on August 30, 2019 by Lakeshore Records for download and on September 13, 2019 on vinyl. In total, only 22 minutes of the 102-minute film are accompanied by music. "I feel you don't need a lot of score over that sound of the jungle, because there's so much going on," says Levi.

Levi, who actually mainly uses stringed instruments in her work, was able to convince Landes with synthesizer sounds, but also with sounds that she created with objects connected to the place: “As if someone had driven to this remote mountain one day and had found all the elements that make up the film, all the objects, ”says Levi. The resulting elementary sounds, such as blowing into a bottle, are described by Landes as similar to a spaghetti western, while the synthesizer sounds seem like noises that could come from a Berlin nightclub. "Like me, Lena likes to be inspired by what is there and what is natural," said Landes, and she stylized it in a way that appears otherworldly.

About the creation of the piece Honguitos , based on the Spanish hongo mágico , Mica Levi said that she believes that magic mushrooms and psychedelics often produce very clear visions and do not result in loss of vision. The flutes used in their music also have a fairly bright and clear sound and are not as dissonant as in the other, rather chaotic music. “I felt that this describes the mushroom experience more precisely,” says Levi.

Cuban sound designer Lena Esquenazi , like Levi, based her work on the setting .

Monos premiered on January 27, 2019 as part of the Sundance Film Festival . On February 10, 2019, the film was shown for the first time in Germany at the Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section. Monos was released in Colombian cinemas on August 15, 2019 . In July 2019 the film will be shown at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival . In August 2019 a screening took place at the Melbourne International Film Festival. A launch in selected US cinemas took place on September 13, 2019. Also in September 2019, a screening took place at the Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián . At the end of September and beginning of October 2019 it was shown at the Zurich Film Festival , then at the London Film Festival in the official competition and at the Film Festival Cologne . A cinema release in Germany was planned on April 2, 2020, but was postponed to June 4, 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

reception

Age rating and film genre

In the USA, the film received an R rating from the MPAA , which corresponds to a rating of 17 and over. In Germany, the film was approved by the FSK from the age of 16. The statement of reasons for release states that the film has an increasingly tense atmosphere and contains some emotionally intense conflict situations. Isolated scenes of violence and killing are not played out sensationally, are not glorified in any way, are conclusively embedded in the dramaturgy and underline the socially critical message of the film. The program of the Berlinale, the film is a nightmarish blend of War and Survival - Thriller described.

Reviews and grossing results

So far, the film has received the approval of 93 percent of all Rotten Tomatoes critics and achieved an average rating of 8.1 out of a possible 10 points. The film also came third in the 21st Annual Golden Tomato Awards in the Best Thrillers category .

Karsten Munt from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung writes that Monos shows the carnal lust that is awakening in the community not in acts of war, but in youthful rituals: "Relationships and sexual contacts that were previously registered with the roll call and" carried out "only after the superior's consent, are now freely lived out with the burgeoning sexual maturity: A playful kiss, a first approach to the foreign or one's own gender and the constant scuffles among the guerrillas awaken a pleasure that is directly linked to the barbaric violence that dominates the new constellation of unity and at the same time threatens to wear out. ”The form of brutality that director Alejandro Landes is slowly bringing up inexorably does not primarily grow on the breeding ground of war, but rather awakens in the young people themselves when the adolescent gimmicks in the archaic partisan life acquire inexorable momentum of their own. Like Golding in Lord of the Flies , Landes investigates the destructive power of the mechanisms by which the boy becomes a man and the girl becomes a woman under wild conditions. Munt also notes that the untouched nature does not appear as an idyll that contrasts the increasing brutality, but lurks in the background like a constantly changing threat: "as a huge ridge, in front of which the children become tiny silhouettes". The adolescents learn to survive according to their own rules, and their barbaric efficiency is not a departure from adolescence, but its logical consequence: “In“ Monos ”, it is not the dichotomy of youthful and warlike behavior that is what constitutes cruel severity, but their close relatives. [...] Having outgrown the rules of civilization and having arrived at the deadly consequence of their own moral system, the young people only know one truth: the meat of the cow tastes better than its milk. "

Christian Pogatetz from the online cinema magazine Uncut describes Monos as a visually stunning mixture of war thriller and milieu study, which puts emotion and authenticity above concrete explanations. The actual motivations that drive the young people to their actions are never exactly explained, which is by no means a weakness of the film, but rather a conscious decision that was made to literally throw the viewer into the nightmarish sub-society: “With a rough depiction of violence, which can turn the pit of your stomach, rich colors and an incredibly precise background noise gives Landes a kind of realism that makes the absurdities in the film seem plausible. ”In addition, there is a cast of actors whose physically and mentally demanding game unites you suggests that they actually belong to such a milieu, continues Pogatetz. He sums up: "Landes has created an immersive cinema fever dream with breathtaking imagery and a psychological as well as physical hardship that you will probably not easily get out of your head."

Cinevue's Rory O'Connor says Monos is also a political film, although it is more interested in the diversity of its actors and characters than attempting social criticism.

In the first few weeks after its cinema release in Colombia on August 15, 2019, the film, which was shown in 23 cities, grossed more than 600,000 US dollars, which is considerable figures for Colombia, where cinemas are often dominated by Hollywood productions, according to Eric Kohn by IndieWire . Monos hit a nerve in Colombia, where the government signed a peace treaty with the central rebel group three years ago, said Kohn. There were discussions there about the country's peace treaty with the FARC, but the film also received negative criticism. The former Dutch guerrilla fighter Tanja Nijmeijer, who has been a member of the FARC since 2002, described the film as a “sad attempt to consolidate clichés about the uprising in Colombia”. According to a review by Semana magazine , "By refusing to take into account the ideological clash of the warring factions, the clash of visions of the present, past and future in a confrontation, the film presents a terribly incomplete version of these imagined warriors." Proponents of the film in Colombia include the country's largest newspaper, El Tiempo , which published an editorial that sees the film as a contribution to overcoming the war. The Colombian writer Héctor Abad Faciolince wrote in El Espectador : “Without defining a place, an armed group or even a country, Monos shows us the anomie caused by the Colombian conflict . [...] The lack of norms and any ethics has brought us back to a ' state of nature ' in the sense of Hobbes . "

Awards (selection)

Monos was submitted by Colombia as an entry for the 2020 Academy Awards in the category of Best International Film , but was not shortlisted. Further nominations follow.

American Society of Cinematographers Awards 2020

British Independent Film Awards 2019

  • Nomination for best international independent film

Cinefest Miskolc 2019

Festival Internacional de Cine de San Sebastián 2019

  • Nomination for the Horizons Award ( Alejandro Landes )
  • Received the Sebastiane Award (Alejandro Landes)

London Critics' Circle Film Awards 2020

  • Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film
  • Nomination for the Technical Achievement Award (cameraman Jasper Wolf)

London Film Festival 2019

  • Award for Best Film (Alejandro Landes)

Montclair Film Festival 2019

  • Nomination in the Fiction Feature Competition (Alejandro Landes)

Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival 2019

  • Nomination for the Silver Méliès Award for Best European Fantasy Fiction Film (Alejandro Landes)

Online Film Critics Society Awards 2020

Palm Springs International Film Festival 2020

  • Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film for the FIPRESCI Award (Alejandro Landes)
  • Received the Ibero-American Award for best film from Latin America, Spain or Portugal

Sundance Film Festival 2019

  • Nomination for the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Competition - Dramatic (Alejandro Landes)
  • Awarded the special prize in the "World Cinema" category

Sydney Film Festival 2019

  • Nomination for Best Film for the Sydney Film Prize (Alejandro Landes)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Monos - Between Heaven and Hell . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 198089 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ Mono. In: crew-united.com. Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  3. ↑ Eric Kohn: Sundance 2019: The 13 Best Movies of This Year's Festival. In: indiewire.com, February 3, 2019.
  4. ↑ All queer films from the Berlinale 2019. In: Siegessäule, February 2, 2019.
  5. ↑ Peter Bradshaw: Monos review - Apocalypse Now on shrooms. In: The Guardian, February 13, 2019.
  6. ↑ a b c Will Gottsegen: Left Field: Mica Levi on Making Music Sound Like a Mushroom Trip in Her 'Monos' Score. In: spin.com, October 9, 2019.
  7. ↑ a b c Alex Godfrey: 'People were dropping like flies': why Monos was the decade's most brutal film shoot. In: The Guardian, October 10, 2019.
  8. ↑ a b c d e Eric Kohn: Colombia's Oscar Submission 'Monos' Is a Hit in Its Home Country - and a Controversy. In: indiewire.com, September 21, 2019.
  9. ↑ a b German co-production Monos honored at Sundance Festival. In: volksstimme.de. February 3, 2019, accessed February 5, 2019 .
  10. ↑ a b German co-production “Monos” honored at Sundance Festival. In: Focus Online, February 3, 2019.
  11. ^ Daniel Theophanous: London Film Festival: Monos. In: thelondoneconomic.com, October 10, 2019.
  12. ↑ Bladimir Martínez: "Monos" sacude conciencias en el festival de cine de San Sebastián. In: soynuevaprensadigital.com, September 23, 2019.
  13. ↑ Alicia García de Francisco: Alejandro Landes deslumbra con "Monos" in San Sebastián. In: elespectador.com, September 23, 2019.
  14. ^ María Claudia Peña: Alejandro Landes' Monos delves into the plight of children in war. In: thecitypaperbogota.com, August 12, 2019.
  15. ↑ a b c d Chris O'Falt: Mica Levi's Monumental 'Monos' Score Started With Blowing Into a Glass Bottle. In: indiewire.com, September 13, 2019.
  16. ↑ 'Monos' Soundtrack Album Announced. In: filmmusicreporter.com, August 8, 2019.
  17. ↑ Mica Levi: Monos (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). In: resident-music.com. Retrieved October 13, 2019.
  18. ↑ Fear and Terror in Neuchâtel: The Most Expected Films from NIFFF 2019. In: outnow.ch. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  19. ↑ Mono. In: miff.com.au. Retrieved June 1, 2019.
  20. ↑ Mono. In: zff.com. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  21. ↑ Ben Dalton: BFI London Film Festival selects 10 titles for 2019 competition. In: screendaily.com, August 28, 2019.
  22. ^ Film Festival Cologne: Festival program. In: filmfestival.cologne. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  23. ↑ Start dates Germany In: insidekino.com. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
  24. ↑ Monos - Between Heaven and Hell. In: dcmworld.com. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  25. ↑ Antje Wessels: Cinema releases in times of Corona. In: wessels-filmkritik.com. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  26. ↑ https://www.spio-fsk.de/?seitid=2737&tid=469&Vers=1&FGID=5545
  27. ↑ Monos In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved February 18, 2020. Note: The Tomatometer is the percentage of Rotten Tomatoes Approved Critics who gave the film a positive rating.
  28. ↑ Best Reviewed Thrillers 2019. In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 10, 2020.
  29. ↑ Karsten Munt: "Monos": A youth guerrilla discovers fighting in South America. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 21, 2019.
  30. ^ Christian Pogatetz: Film review for 'Monos'. In: uncut.at, February 11, 2019.
  31. ↑ Berlin 2019: Monos review cine-vue.com, accessed on May 12, 2019
  32. ↑ Jazz Tangcay: 'Joker', '1917' and 'The Irishman' Among Nominees for American Society of Cinematographers Awards. In: Variety, January 3, 2020.
  33. ↑ Alex Ritman: Armando Iannucci's 'David Copperfield' Leads 2019 British Independent Film Awards Nominations. In: The Hollywood Reporter, October 30, 2019.
  34. ^ Art Cinema Award for Monos, by Alejandro Landes, at the Cinefest Miskolc. In: cicae.org, 23 September 2019.
  35. ↑ Mono. In: sansebastianfestival.com. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  36. ^ Andrew Pulver: The Souvenir leads nominations for London critics' circle film awards. In: The Guardian, December 17, 2019.
  37. ↑ Ryan Lattanzio: Foreign Oscar Submissions 'Monos' and 'Atlantics' Top BFI London Film Festival Winners. In: indiewire.com, October 12, 2019.
  38. ↑ Monos In: montclairfilm.org. Retrieved April 6, 2019.
  39. ↑ Erik Anderson: Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) nominations: 'The Irishman', 'Once Upon a Time…', 'Marriage Story', 'Parasite' lead. In: awardswatch.com, December 23, 2019.
  40. ↑ Pete Hammond: Palm Springs Film Festival Sets Lineup; 'An Almost Ordinary Summer' & 'Military Wives' Are Opening- And Closing-Night Movies. In: deadline.com, December 10, 2019.
  41. ↑ Pat Saperstein: 'Beanpole', 'Talking About Trees' Among Palm Springs Film Festival Winners. In: Variety, January 11, 2020.
  42. ^ Special prize for "Monos" at the Sundance Film Festival. In: filmstiftung.de. Retrieved October 13, 2019.