I remember Medellin. I had never heard of the cartel before. But the taxi we had taken at the airport had immediately put us in the mood, boasting of his city as the most violent in the world. He had read that in the Guinness World Records and he was both sorry and proud of it. More proud than sorry, in fact. In any case, he sold us this local violence as a tourist attraction. In fact, the night was hot. We had been given the address of a “good hotel” which turned out to be a disaster of noise, heat, fights and arrest. Cops everywhere, junkies, armored cars. That hadn’t stopped us from spending the night in bars, clubs, hammams, and fucking like crazy.
And in the early morning, near the Metropolitana cathedral, there were mangoes, the green ones to bite into with salt, the blackberries to drip your fingers with juice as a mango could never be so sweet, succulent. We left the next day for the Pacific coast, another form of savagery, but natural, no less risky, mosquitoes, snakes, natives. And the ocean which bears its name so badly.
A few decades later, while going to see Laura Mora’s film, Los Reyes del Mundo, I knew I wouldn’t find any of that. And yet yes, a little. The street children of Medellin are still left there to fend for themselves, in the wild in a city where, if they find food or sleep, it is by taking the place of dogs, after having taken their mouth bread.
Thugs who will only find their salvation by becoming angels
Colombia is an anthropological laboratory, specializing in violence. All kinds of violence: social, family, sexual, political, economic. Laura Mora was just 20 years old when her father was murdered by a sicario. Following which, so to speak, she co-directed the series Pablo Escobar, the boss of evil, before filming, alone as a grown-up, in 2017, Matar a Jesus, which recounted the assassination of his father. Did she break free? Does she really want to move on? Whatever she does, it will be about the same thing: violence, the first victims of which are always children. They don’t stay that way for long, children. For those in Medellin, it’s grow up, fast, or die. Mold on the spot or leave. They choose to leave. They are five boys: Rá, their leader, Culebro, Sere, Winny and Nano.
Far from five club by Enid Blyton, they would sometimes make one think of Louis Forton’s Nickel-plated Feet, so much do they laugh clinging to the bumpers of trucks. But the real reference, for these kings of the world, is of course Los Olvidados of Buñuel; they have its shattering beauty, its tragic energy. The forgotten ones of Laura Mora have no bed to sleep in, no family to discourage, but like the Mexicans, brought up in violence, they kill each other, the founding crime awakening the conscience of these thugs who will not find their salvation. only by becoming angels.
In the meantime, Rá imposes his dream on his friends: he owns a large piece of land that he has just inherited from his grandmother thanks to the peace signed between the government and the paramilitaries. The reality of the mirage lies in this stamped, stamped, signed, and dirtyly crumpled sheet which acts as a title deed. Just go there, in the Bajo Cauca. The exodus begins, and with it our amazement, a novel by Garcia Marquez on the shoulder.
There is always, in a great film, a detail that strikes you, breaks your heart. There, it is to the character of Sere that this task falls. Sere is the skinniest of the bunch, the sweetest, too, because of his useless right arm. As they are almost always bare-chested, in motion, on the run or fighting, this dead limb becomes, without our noticing, the scepter of these abandoned children, the totem of this magnificent film.