At the heart of Colombian nature, a great war film about human nature.
Somewhere at the top of a mountain in South America, the Monos, a group of child soldiers, are responsible for monitoring an American hostage (Julianne Nicholson). They are eight, from 12 to 16 years old and call themselves Dog, Lady, Rambo, Bigfoot or Smurf. All are heavily armed and coached by the Messenger, a dwarf bodybuilder who trains them and acts as a relay within “The Organization”, a clandestine revolutionary movement which fights the official army.
Between boredom, the urge to play, the first emotions in love, political propaganda and military tasks, it is not easy to find a place for these kids. Not easy, above all, in such a context of violence, discomfort and permanent survival, to remain children…
Stolen childhood
Presented in February 2019 at the Berlinale, prize for the best foreign film at Sundance and grand prize in Ghent, Jumpsuits is a real shock. Born in Brazil, educated and living in the United States, Alejandro Landes indeed signs a great war film, which plunges us into the darkness of human nature.
If he is loosely inspired by the Farc hostage-taking in the Colombian jungle, Landes has no way of anchoring his point in reality. The idea is rather to create a recognizable context, but indefinite geographically and temporally, to dig something other than the news item or even politics. Aside from recruiting children and washing their brains, nothing will be known about the ideological orientation of this “Organization”. What counts for the Colombian-Ecuadorian filmmaker is to observe a group of teenagers, in the midst of puberty, plunged in spite of themselves into a world of adults.
In the manner ofApocalypse Now, Jumpsuits uses the film of adventure and action to offer a very somber reflection on the human condition and on the vicious cycle of violence. All the more gloomy since these are children who, placed in impossible circumstances, slide towards madness, towards uncontrolled violence, towards cruelty.
Rambo in children
If the reflection can seem abstract, the setting in scene of Alejandro Landes wants on the contrary very concrete. Filming as closely as possible his young heroes, in very harsh situations, in the rain, at night, in the middle of combat, drifting in a river …, the filmmaker delivers a real Rambo – it is obviously not a coincidence if one of the characters bears this name -, except that the heroes here are adrift adrift.
Very harsh, the staging is carried by a brilliant montage and a masterful soundtrack (using the sounds of the forest to compose a bewitching soundscape), which reinforce the hallucinatory side of a film from which one comes out devastated. True experience for the senses, Jumpsuits spares the spectator nothing, eludes nothing and has little more confidence in childhood than in adulthood when it comes to showing the worst of which the human being is capable.
Jumpsuits Of Alejandro Landes Scenario Alejandro Landes & Alexis Dos Santos Photography Jasper Wolf Music Mica Levi With Moisés Arias, Julianne Nicholson, Laura Castrillón… Duration 1h42
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