Event

Monos

MONOS, Alejandro Landes awe-inspiring third feature, is a breathtaking survivalist saga set on a remote mountain in Latin America. The film tracks a young group of soldiers and rebels --bearing names like Rambo, Smurf, Bigfoot, Wolf and Boom-Boom --who keep watch over an American hostage, Doctora (Julianne Nicholson).

The teenage commandos perform military training exercises by day and indulge in youthful hedonism by night, an unconventional family bound together under a shadowy force known only as The Organization. After anambush drives the squadron into the jungle, both the mission and the intricate bonds between the group begin to disintegrate. Order descends into chaos and within MONOS the strong begin to prey on the weak in this vivid, cautionary fever-dream.

With a rapturous score by Mica Levi (only her third, after UNDER THE SKIN and JACKIE), director Alejandro Landes examines the chaos and absurdity of war from the unique perspective of adolescence, recalling LORD OF THE FLIES and BEAU TRAVAIL in a way that feels wholly original. Landes brings together a diverse young cast of both seasoned professionals (including Hannah Montana's Moisés Arias) and untrained neophytes and thrusts them into an unforgiving, irrational and often surreal environment where anything can happen even peace.

"Mesmerizing. A powerful new voice in cinema." - Guillermo Del Toro

"An experience at once jagged and lyrical, brutal and beautiful, angry and abstract, scattered and wholly singular." - Jessica Kiang, Variety

"A towering filmic achievement, "Monos" pulsates like an inescapable vivid trance, cosmic and terrestrial at once, fantastical and violently stark, about victims and victimizers." - LA Times

"Call it a collective character study or a perpetual-war film - Monos takes it cues from a number of well-known influences. But there's a specific, singular madness that's completely its own." Rolling Stone

"In between these atmospheric moments, something coheres in your head, a nightmarish thought. Is this our future?" Time Out

"[A] gorgeously shot, haunting look at human nature at its fraying edges." Detroit News

"Violent, beautiful and powerfully watchable..." - Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post