Rá (Carlos Andrés Castañeda) receives a letter from the court that after a long trial, the land that once belonged to his now-deceased grandmother will be legally turned over to him as her remaining heir.  The teenager is not the only one in Medellín without a family.  Culebro (Cristian David Duque), Sere (Davison Florez), Winny (Cristian Campaña), and Nano (Brahian Acevedo) have formed a family of their own together and are excited to journey with their brother to “the promised land.”  The journey is not easy, and as they inch closer to salvation, they find the country turning ever more violent with each step they take. 

Laura Mora Ortega directs The Kings of the World, a Spanish-language, coming-of-age drama she co-wrote with Maria Camila Arias that found wide release in the States on Netflix.  Submitted by Columbia for the 95th Academy Awards, Ortega’s film is full of heart and soul, but it is also crushingly heartbreaking as a generation of youth find themselves stranded under the consequences of the paramilitary rule of their country years before even their parents may have been born.  Despite the bleak nature of the story, The Kings of the World still captures some of the magic of youth as these five boys pick up the pieces of their surroundings and create the best life possible for themselves.  It is a far cry from the joy and magic of the adventure found in something like The Goonies (1985), but it is not as completely punishing Alejandro Landes’ Monos (2019), Columbia’s submission to the 92nd Academy Awards, which followed a band of child soldiers on a journey through the mountains. 

The Kings of the World is captured by David Gallego’s camera, and he imbues a sense of magic realism to the film.  It is not just in how he captures the mountainous region in its foggy splendor, but also in how he finds moments of magic in the script that allows the boys to feel safe, yet vulnerable.  The film opens almost in a dream-like state, a white horse in the middle of the empty street, and Rá rides the horse like a knight returning from war, as he opines through a whispered voiceover about how the fences of the world – the borders that divide – have burned to the ground.  The fantasy quickly fades in a flurry of punches as Rá’s crew gets into a skirmish with another local gang.  The youngest of the five, Winny, has gotten himself into a bit of a bind, lifting items from people on the street, but he refuses to lie down even after taking a slash to the arm. 

Winny is the key to understanding the film – while it was Rá’s grandmother who was forced from her home so many years ago, the youngest generation as a whole often finds themselves equally homeless in a hostile land.  The boys have adopted him, as they have adopted one another, and they want to make sure he is okay.  They all have the similar goal of finding a home for themselves, but there is a protection they show towards Winny that is different than the support the older four often show each other. Collectively, they are trying to secure a better life for him; one that might not have as much hardship as their own.  Winny, though, feels that as the youngest he has something to prove to the group.  To view the character through a more cynical lens, he could be seen as rash and short-tempered, but these actions are just his way of masking his fear of being left behind by his new family. 

On their journey, Ortega allows them to embrace their youth as they hitch a ride on the back of a truck, walk down an alley at night and knock out the streetlamps, and stand atop the mountains and look out over the country – as kings – that they want to make their own.  Looking back at the scene with the streetlamps, it marks a true turning point for the film as the boys leave what world they knew behind and truly begin their journey into the unknown, bound together by the equivalent of a blood oath as they walk together through the increasing darkness until finally, the screen goes black, aware but maybe not fully cognizant of the dangers that lie ahead. Despite the smiles and excitement that they are able to conjure up, there is still a fear and anxiety that is deeply present and they do not act carelessly.  Delivered through voiceover on a foggy morning, the boys give a name to their fears and their desires.  Though it is five teenagers at the heart of the story, the film is not solely fueled by testosterone angst, as before the boys make their way deep into the jungle for the final stretch of their journey, they spend an evening at a brothel.  This stopping point does not derail the film into something of a romance nor does it even consider adding a notion or eroticism to the film, but it adds a mothering touch to the story, something that – try as the boys may to provide for themselves – seeing so clearly what they do not have makes its absence ever harder.  There is such love and kindness, not just from the boys but from the women as well as they bond over the shared feeling of being cast aside by society and making a home for themselves on the fringe.  This is not an instance of misery loving company, rather it is an example of compassion that is rare in the world of the film; a painful reflection of life itself.

The film ends on an ambiguous note, but at the same time, it does not feel like this story is only half finished. When the three remaining boys arrive – Nano having been kidnapped earlier in the journey, and Rá’s rival in the group, Culebro, succumbing to injuries suffered in a scuffle with the defacto leader of the crew – they mark their claim with a makeshift flag; their shirts tied to a large limb where the house once stood. All that remains is the doorframe, their threshold into the next phase of their lives. In the morning, however, they realize they are not alone. A larger clan is already inhabiting the area, boys and young men ranging the same age as Rá and his friends who work in the nearby gold mine, and they are unwelcoming to these newcomers. Gallego pulls his camera away, and from afar we see the valley, but not the boys, and then we hear three gunshots right out through the jungle. He then cuts to an equally distant shot of three boys, unidentifiable, drifting down the river on a raft. We do not know who these three boys are as they are too far away, but we can make a pretty safe assumption; the lingering question is if this is real? Have they escaped and are once again in search of a home? Is it a collective memory in their final moments of the closest thing to a family they have ever known? Or like the legends and fantasies of old, as we opened with Rá riding his pure white horse, maybe this is just the start of these three knights on the first step of their new quest in the legend they are writing of themselves in their imaginations as a salve for the reality in which they are bound.

Ortega’s coming-of-age journey through the Columbian jungle is not a light one, but it is not so heavy that it becomes impenetrable.  It is careful, touching, and profound so that despite the tragic finale, there were still moments of bliss and joy where the boys could be boys and not have all the pressure of adulthood and an oppressive government weighing them down.  Her script is a brutal one, but she is specific in balancing the small victories in the face of an invincible system, and the nuanced performances she is able to coax out of her ensemble cast of first-time actors are nothing short of incredible.  As grown up as these boys act – as self-reliant as they are – what can they actually do?  This is summed up in one of the most powerful scenes at the land office when it is revealed that Rá’s case has only passed one hurdle, however, there are multiple other trials regarding the parcel of land, and its ownership is still in question.  But they persevere, nonetheless, discouraged but not defeated, because when where you came from offers you nothing, anywhere certainly has to be better.  Right? They are the kings of a world in which they are making, and they will stop at nothing until they have a castle to call their own.