The Colors Of The Mountain

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The Colors of the Mountain The Colors of the Mountain is a film written and directed by Carlos César Arbeláez where a soccer ball that is accidentally kicked and left in a minefield is the main image throughout the film .It is set in the mountainous region of rural Colombia where life is hard and the area is poor, but people manage to get by. The lives of the characters in this film are menaced on one side by paramilitary groups and on the other by guerrillas. Arbeláez’s film revolves around a group of friends, Manuel, Julian, and Poca Luz. We see everything that is happening through their eyes, the constant threat and the hushed conversations adults would have, which were never entirely seen or heard. Violence hovers over and sometimes is in the all the boys’ lives, but they seem to try to ignore what is going on around them. When Manuel’s brand new soccer ball is kicked into a field filled with land-mines the boys are sad to see the ball in the middle of the field and are being prevented from getting it, but still they ignore the dangers as they try and retrieve the ball. Although some bloody bodies are occasionally seen, the film keeps most of the horrific scenes of the war off-screen, which gradually builds up tension in lighter scenes that show the happiness and troubles of childhood bonds. The innocence of the children creates funny, honest, and unfortunate situations that move the viewer. The film shows us a reality that is never really talked about and is almost invisible, it gives us a view on how these hard situations affect children daily. It hardly matters to the people who live in the village which threat came from the guerrillas and which came from the paramilitaries because it all comes into one. This is not a film just about violence, or about bringing peace, much less a film about trying to explain the conflicts of war going on in Colombia.
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