Monos (Alejandro Landes, 2019)

This starts off rather promisingly with a seemingly quasi-allegorical setup of child soldiers, distinguished by nicknames, guarding a hostage - and a cow - high among the clouds. (A bit like a meeting between Jansco's The Confrontation and the party scene from Assayas' Cold Water.) But while it remained intermittently impressive, the interest rather dissipated for me after we descend into the jungle. I certainly don't think we needed the Lord of the Flies connection to become explicit, nor the 400 Blows ending. The combination of the cinematography with crunchy sound design and Mica Levi's scratchy soundtrack is undeniably tactile, and also very impressive - but I think I would have been more impressed if the film hadn't spent so much of its energy desperately trying to impress me.