“Starts like so many South American films that focus on the social ills of the continent’s major cities, but transforms into a moving rumination on the resilience of its people”

After decades of civil war and suffering under the violence of paramilitary groups from both ends of the political spectrum, Colombia’s most recent years have been relatively quiet. That of course doesn’t mean that the wounds that were inflicted have healed completely; some never can be. The displacement of many people, often indigenous, has often become permanent, their previous lives in the jungles that these paramilitary groups dominated a distant memory. In his third solo effort, Colombian-Canadian director Juan Andrés Arango places the gradual return of these exiles at the heart of a peculiar love story that aims at that feeling of belonging to a place. Sliding from social realism into something more poetic, Where the River Begins (Donde comienza el río) slowly grabs you and envelops you like the jungle that is the film’s final destination.

Yajaira (Girleza Duave Cerezo), a young Emberá woman who fled the violence that struck her village on the Andágueda river in western Colombia. She has ended up in the country’s capital Bogotá, selling handicrafts with indigenous patterns on the streets. Here too, violence is never far away, and it is not the environment where she wants her young daughter María (Ana Michell Nama Dumaza) to grow up. In her dreams the jungle calls to her, but her pleas to return fall on deaf ears in the community of displaced Emberá. Her father is convinced the paramilitary groups are still in the area. When her nephew Matéo gets killed in the crossfire of two rival gangs, Yajaira’s decision is final: she and María will leave the city no matter what. Tagging along is Jhon (Juan David Junca Linares), a young gang member who clearly has feelings for Yajaira, even though she gives him the cold shoulder. What she doesn’t know is that Jhon, unintentionally, is responsible for the death of her nephew.

What follows is a journey in which the two protagonists grow closer, and the harshness of the city is left behind for a world where people help each other out and everyone looks out for each other. There are several shots of leafcutter ants in the film that sort of underline this theme, and even if Where the River Begins shows that violence is everywhere in this country, there is a sense of peace and community once the awkward traveling companions reach the river. Interestingly enough, this is also where clear racial distinctions are made, between white (Jhon), Indian (Yajaira), and black. “She thinks she’s white now,” two local girls snap at Yajaira while bathing in the river, a clear indicator of the divide between people even here. It’s one of several moments of social commentary Arango lets slip into Where the River Begins, in a film that mostly focuses on the effects of displacement and migration, and on the hope that the memory of better days can move us forward. As the jungle gets denser and the film starts brimming with texture, magical realism snakes its way into the story, as do actual snakes, and a snakebite leads to something akin to an acid trip for Jhon. The jungle judges who can survive and is allowed to stay, and hope prevails in the poetic and contemplative final stretch of a film that starts like so many South American films that focus on the social ills of the continent’s major cities, but transforms into a moving rumination on the resilience of its displaced people.