To a gang of five street-raised youths with boxed minds, the stark and hard-hitting realities of growing up in Medellín, Colombia are all but just a stone’s throw away from living a better life. The combination of them not only trying to detach from their home but subconsciously mature in the process bring unfathomable events into their lives that break down everything they once knew. With a Netflix film releasing on January 4 titled The Kings of The World, preteens by the name of Ra, Culebro, Sere, Winny, and Nao all quickly come to the harshest of truths.
Going On An Adventure With The Kings of the World
Netflix
Through a spiritual and euphoric visual lens that exemplifies symbolism in all the right places (including a mysterious white horse), the audience follows along with nineteen-year-old, Ra and the rest of his clan as they set out on a quest toward the more inner parts of Colombia to reclaim his grandmother’s plot of land which is located in the province of Nechi, almost 400 kilometers away. As Ra’s grandmother was a victim of the armed conflict that started in that country in 1964, he is now entitled to the parcel due to the Victims and Land Restitution Law that was passed in 2011.
Combining the country’s political history with mythology and outlining a plot similar to that of 1989’s Dead Poet Society in which young men are suddenly captivated with a new motivation, director Laura Mora Ortega intertwines those three factors into a very raw but mesmerizing coming of age tale. She uses the visual and ever-deepening backdrop of Colombia’s green hills and forest spreads to deliver a gritty, realistic message about life’s ups and downs, that come through in the forms of people you meet and situations you have to tackle. Obviously, Ms. Ortega knows what she is doing in the world of film-making as she has won twenty-two awards since she started in this field in 2006. Since this film’s release at the 70th San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain, it has won Best Picture at that convention and has been selected to show at other conventions, both in Chicago and Zurich, Switzerland.
Laura Mora Ortega Utilizes Imagery More Than Dialogue
With each defining event the boys encounter being interpreted as a step toward what is molded to be an inescapable and repressed adulthood, The Kings of The World continuously evolves into a more impactful and emotional story. The most striking example of this is shown during the very first night of their journey toward the supposed promised land. Utilizing the shelter as a place to stop and rest, the tribe finds themselves in a brothel filled with older women. Mirroring the beginning stages of childhood where a mother would heal a small child with physical forms of affection, none of the main characters are ever shown to be in sexual situations with these women, but instead, each is shot slow-dancing with a madam, oddly enough in the shape of a nurturing hug. There are many other moments just like this in The Kings of The World where the audience can partake in an ongoing self-reflection of their own younger selves.
Even though this seems to be Carlos Andres Castaneda, Brahian Acevedo, Cristian Campana, and Cristian David Duque’s first big break through the young expeditioners Ra, Sere, Nano, and Winny in The Kings of The World, they each bring a nuanced wonder to the characters that compliment the vast location, wielding every setting to their whim as they come upon them in the movie. In a comfortable place, their reactions put the audience to ease. In hostile territory, the audience instead feels the need to hold their breath.
Stepping into the shoes of the suspicious fifth member of the group after some opposition early on, Cristian David Duque as Culebro has both prior television and feature film experience. Being on a combined 96 episodes of Colombian television and four films, Mr. Duque easily brings another element of the harsh world into the trying life of the others which includes upon all else, the deep-cutting surprise of betrayal.
The grim narrative of The Kings of The World would not have come alive without the help of nine different production companies and five different distributors (one being Netflix for the United States and international VOD releases). One of the production companies, Caracol Television, is responsible for bringing American works such as X-Men: The Animated Series and Knights of the Zodiac to Colombian television. A distributor, Cine Colombia, has helped circulate movies such as The Hunger Games and The Expendables to international countries.
With all these different established partners coming together for the creation of this intense coming-of-age tale and both critics and the audience alike praising the newest film of Ms. Ortega, The Kings of the World should be one of your first must-see films of the new year. On one hand, you’ll be longing for the carefree attitude that you once harnessed when you were younger, but that will all quickly be washed over with a new-found appreciation toward realistic maturity.
