Title: Kings of the World
MPAA Rating: TV-MA
Director: Laura Mora Ortega
Starring: Carlos Andrés Castañeda, Davison Florez, Brahian Acevedo, Cristian Campaña, Cristian David Duque
Runtime: 1 hrs 43 mins

What It Is: Five stray teen boys with no parents are bonded closely together, making up a family of their own. The clan includes Rá (Castañeda), Sere (Florez), Nano (Acevedo), Winny (Campaña), and Culebro (Duque). They roam the streets of Medellín, Columbia, getting into machete fights and defending each others’ honor. When Rá gets news in the mail that his late-grandmother’s land is being passed down to him, the boys go on an extensive journey to meet the rural land and claim it as their very own, only to find danger, conflict, and loss awaits them.

What We Think: It’s a film that forces you to pay attention. Poetically executed and exquisitely performed, this centers around how a young, unheard generation has been affected by greed, violence, and poverty. The main characters share a facsinating and endearing duality to them, prone to violence and endangering themselves, but also are often protective and affirming to each other. Their unabashed embraces to their childish fights make them feel fuller as people; you see them struggling to be carefree despite knowing they live in a punishing world. Their drive to make it to the land of riches, as they see it, intensifies as they’re forced to fight harder or lose the one good thing left behind by Rá’s misfortunate family, as the property had been stolen from them by violent paramillititaries. From their engrossing friendships, to the hardships they face, it rings true to coming-of-age dramas of the past: City of God and Stand By Me come to mind. The adolenscent rage often rears its head as the boys seem to experience backlash at their very existence and in turn, they reject societ. It’s well-balanced between the abusive circumstances, and their reaction to those circumstances by pushing forward, playing games, being reckless, and chewing the scenery. It’s incredibly, believably slice-of-life, full of moments big and small, that feel more important than the boys who are living those moments realize. A fantastic image I loved in this film is when a boy thoughtlessly, enjoyably keys a car as he walks by, then clinging and hugging another boy as they trek on. You recognize the same potential for violence and destruction reflected in their actions, and yet there’s this immense innocence to them and their intentions. The way scenes are filmed and framed make them feel dreamy, immersing you into the idea that these are real child/teenhood memories being lived out, someday to be lost or forgotten in their ephemeral nature. The parallel of these moments against the larger-scale tragedy of loss haunt you, each scene leaving you with the creeping idea that nothing lasts, but the hope that these kids will make it despite their challenges.

The moodiness of the scenery often leaves me speechless, from meditative tracking shots through winding mountinous highways, to a quiet tour of an emptied, ransacked rural house with a dark history, to a neon-lit brothel with peeling-paint walls and a wonky piano. The soundtrack adds to this as well, strangely quiet and melancholic, almost mourning, as if trying to make a point as to how the boys are constantly bogged down by their cirucmstances. It reminds of other fantastic naturalistic works, such as Chloe Zhao’s The Rider. My real only critique is it does slow down a lot in the second half, namely the second act, and looses some intensity as it focuses too much on certain repetitive scenes of just simply existing.

Our Grade: B+, Incredibly sensitive and worldly, with rage bubbling under its surface, Kings of the World brings us a fresh and painfully realistic look on generational trauma, adolescent hope as rebelliousness, and the loss of innocence in the face of a dying world. For an experience that’s just as heartbreaking as it is loving, I would wholly recommend looking into what is deservedly this year’s Columbian entry in the Academy Awards. I also look forward to seeing more of what its director, Laura Mora (with a very catchy name), has next up her sleeve.