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The Colombian Armed Conflict was one of the more consistent localized asymmetric wars between the Colombian Armed Forces, the crime syndicates, and paramilitary groups against the far-left guerrilla groups, all for gaining prominence in the overall territory. This war has been ongoing for over five decades, beginning in 1964 and continuing to this day. On 23rd June 2016, a ceasefire deal was signed between the Colombian government and the rebels but would be subsequently rejected again in the October plebiscite. The Colombian Armed Conflict still continues, and peace remains elusive.
The context is essential for director Cesar Augusto Acevedo, whose experience as a citizen of Colombia is belied by the historical horrors that bled into reality and have continued to bleed into the reality of that world. Acevedo explores this bleed through the premise of the movie, where the ghosts of a son, Balisio (Claudio Catano), and his mother, Ines (Paulina Garcia), finally reunite in death.
But even as the two reunite, they have to reconcile with Balisio’s father’s absence. Due to this, they would undertake a journey through the heart of Colombia’s bloody past, echoed through the destruction in the present, perpetrated much to Ines’ horror by her son. Thus, she would have to grapple with her ideals regarding every soul capable of redemption, as the gaping wounds of the victims of Balisio threaten to almost overwhelm her and Balisio.
There is a particular fascination in viewing a war film through a geography so inundated with war that even time and history lose meaning. When a war goes on for over five decades, a logical inconsistency is bound to creep into the mindset of the soldiers on both sides of the fence, where the original causes of the war slowly start to lose their potency. Thus, war is being waged for the sake of violence.
Aceevdo cleverly showcases this desensitization with the aid of sound designer Camilio Martinez, where the sounds of warfare or processions accompany the aftermath shown via bullet-riddled walls, doors hiding numerous costumes of soldiers, or even in a bedazzling one-take sequence that opens the film, following Basilio as he walks across the courtyard of his house. At the same time, the skies are a dark bluish-grey. Death adorns the house everywhere, either through wilted flowers or through the depiction of a young man conscripted into a guerrilla war, disappearing amidst the shelter of the fog-shrouded mountains.
It’s this juxtaposition of the mundanity within the beauty that is integrated with the violence so seamlessly that actual visual markers of said violence become unnecessary. Instead, as mother and son embark on a journey together, purgatory and reality coexist seamlessly, evident through special effects showcasing Basilio’s childhood home levitating in the air, literally and figuratively out of his reach.
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This purgatorial crossroads also exists between the relationship of mother and son, as the son laments against the violence inflicted by him upon innocents, and him being visited by members of broken families in search of their missing members, who have lost their lives to the cold unflinching hands of Balisio.
But also to ensure that the viewpoint exists for the other side of the fence as well, we witness what is later revealed as the recounting of events of Balisio being conscripted into the army and how that way of existence wallowing in ideological indoctrination removes any semblance of empathy from these young souls, molding them into hardened and deadened soldiers.
The lyricism of the filmmaking carries forward a serious sense of portentousness tending towards an oppressive bleakness that, while complementing the material, slows the pace down to such an extent that the messaging of the filmmaker starts bordering on repetition, as the futility of the search for the redemption of the son by the mother becomes more and more apparent.
The ultimate message is acceptance, a bridge built by family bonds. Still, that journey of acknowledgment of that relationship feels less melancholic, more oppressive, less deliberate, and more portentous. That’s not to say that the performances or visuals aren’t effective; the visuals, especially, are highly impactful, seamlessly mixing the surreal with the actual gorgeous vistas. The past and the present exist simultaneously in that neighboring region where Balisio and his mother walk in search of redemption.
The performance of Paulina Garcia as Ines is especially exemplary as she voices the curious mix of disappointment towards her progeny and her love for her son, balancing those two disparate emotions with equal fervor and poise. Claudio Catano, as Basilio, on the other hand, is forced at times to be the voice of cynicism tending towards disillusionment, which does border on repetition, heightening the bleakness towards a sense of disengagement from the film.
For a movie delving into a substrate as surrealist as “Horizonte” does, the film could have been a bit more beguiling to offset the pervasive sense of gloom. Then again, considering the real-world events this movie is commenting on, the criticism could feel nitpicking. However, as a film that is not interested in justifying a single side but rather extrapolating on the human element lost within the statistics and senselessness of war, it does succeed, though its narrative and visual flourishes do bog its pace down at times.