Tantas almas (2019)

Directed by: Nicolas Rincon Gille | 137 minutes | drama | Actors: Jose Arley de Jesus Carvallido Lobo

A Colombian fisherman goes in a canoe in search of his two sons, who have been dumped in the river by paramilitaries. The understated Colombian drama ‘Tantas almas’ (‘so many souls’) depicts a country and a population still living with the aftermath of years of violence.

It’s 2002. Along the banks of Colombia’s Magdalena River, fisherman José (Arley De Jesús Carvallido Lobo) returns home after a long night on his canoe. There he does not find his three children as expected, but only his daughter – in tears. Her two brothers are ‘taken’, she can just say.

It soon becomes apparent who sons Dionisio and Rafael have taken with them. The region has been ravaged by violence from paramilitary forces attacking, intimidating and killing civilians. Their bodies are dumped in the river; taking them out is strictly prohibited.

José embarks on a quest, determined to find the bodies of his sons and give the boys a farewell so that their tormented souls are not left behind in this world.

The story flows on, mostly calmly, at times treacherous, like the river where fisherman José normally earns his living, but now also contains his sons – and many others with them. Along the way, José finds small clues, like puzzle pieces that he collects to complete his mission. His son’s football shirt that he fishes out of the water is beautiful. But a brief encounter with a deserted paramilitary is also significant: he sighs that the wandering souls also make his life hell. The horrors grip everyone.

Director Nicolás Rincón Gille (1973) was a documentary maker for this feature debut and in that capacity also touched on the theme of paramilitary violence in his country. He traveled extensively along the Magdalena River in the north of the country, recording numerous testimonies of civilian casualties.

That legacy is reflected in this film: he used the many stories of victims for the screenplay of ‘Tantas almas’ and filmed with a non-professional cast, mostly people who themselves have been victims of the violence in one way or another.

From the late 1980s, in Colombia, from a collaboration between drug lords, landowners, regional politicians and high-ranking soldiers, right-wing militias arose in order to strengthen the power of all these groups – and all the progressive forces fighting against the huge inequality in the country, in the to smother.

Called Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) and with unofficial support from the government and then President Alvaro Uribe, these militias attacked the rural population and civil society organisation, reaching a low point of violence at the turn of the century.

Rincón Gilles chooses not to place his first fiction film in the here and now, but in the middle of the heyday of the conflict. The most important question to which he seeks an answer: how did people manage to retain their humanity during those violent years?

The film is intended to convey the strength of ‘a man who has lost everything but his ability to continue to believe’, director Rincón Gilles puts it himself. But in addition to the individual strength, the film also depicts the mutual solidarity of people despite everything that is present – ​​which is also so characteristic of Colombia.

Besides his faith in God, José also retains (a part of) his faith in his fellow man. And he is also determined not to lose the ability to commemorate. In a country with so much loss behind it, commemoration is one of the most important but also most difficult things there is. Especially if those in power at the time never had to take responsibility. Director Rincón Gilles contributes to this: he thanks in the credits ‘everyone who agreed to revisit these dark times’. For those survivors who may never have recovered the body of their loved one and all the wandering souls who have never had a proper memorial, he offers a modest memorial with Tantas almas.