You might not expect a documentary about a severe military training programme to feel intimate, but that is absolutely the case with Night Has Come.
Paolo Tizon’s documentary follows a batch of recruits – many of them teenagers – as they undergo the demanding instruction required to join the Peruvian Armed Forces. In particular, they are being prepared to become one of the elite fighters despatched to carry out a war on drugs in the infamous VRAEM region of the country. Tizon’s film follows them closely as they suffer through all manner of physical training exercises, while also remaining at their sides during downtime, revealing their motivations, fears, and friendships. Night Has Come, which premieres this week as part of Karlovy Vary’s Proxima competition is a depiction of an almost ultimate machismo, while also taking note of its beating emotional heart.
Peru is second to only Colombia in the production of cocaine and the VRAEM, or Valle de los Rios Apurimac, Ene y Mantaro, is an area of the country in which most of its drug growing and trafficking takes place. As such, it is a region of significant military intervention and in order to succeed there, special operators need to be able to cope with anything. This is partly why the endurance training we see the soldiers go through is so robust. Across the course of the film Tizon’s camera captures them performing airdrops with parachutes, grenade throwing drills, combat scenarios, injury and medical aid practice, and some punishing night manoeuvres. At times, it can make for gruelling viewing and, while seeing the stress the candidates have to suffer through is the precise point, being that near to the action for an extended period can make the film drag.
That said, where Night Has Come absolutely makes up for it is in the more low-key sequences with the candidates. Tizon is beside them all of the way and while that sometimes means watching on as they are blasted with a powerful hose in the middle of the night, it also means sitting be them while their eating from ration cans while out on manoeuvres. The evident rapport that the filmmaker built up with the subjects means they feel open to discuss things with him that we – or even they – might not expect. At one point, one recruit looks around at who’s next to him before freely admitting how close he is to his mother and how he still sometimes clambers into bed with her in the night. Others confess to having had relationship issues before they deployed or to the difficulties they have with their families.
The other side to this same element of the film is seeing the guys together during downtime, how openly the talk about the same things they discuss with the filmmaker. In one sequence various people give one person advice on how best to reply to the ex-girlfriend who has just messaged him. In other instances, we see the recruits making and receiving calls from home – in particular Helmet 57 who Tizon shows in an ongoing series of calls. with his mother who tells him how upset his father is that he only calls her. Later he receives a call and some of the relationship issues previously implied are shown directly.
All of this means that when we see the recruits being submerged in freezing water in some kind exposure training, we’re not watching a homogenous mass of soldiers this group of individuals who all have their own reasons for being there, for gritting their teeth and suffering through. Tizon’s beautiful cinematography emphasises this same point, presenting the frolics of brothers in a river fighting over a rubber ring in the same language as two recruits shivering together as water is poured all over them. His camerawork is loose, often ululating with the rhythms of his breathing and bringing the audience into step with the subject. He’s happy for frames to be dirtied by the equipment that lies in the foreground, or by the body of comrade huddled close to the person talking. It not only brings the soldiers intimacy into focus, but also brings us into a similar familiarity. One that can’t help but make these young men’s travails all the more impactful.
Director, screenplay, cinematography: Paolo Tizon
Producer: Diana Castro
Editing: Martin Sola, Paolo Tizon
Sound: Johnatan Darch
Production company: Cinesol Films (Peru),
Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Proxima Competition)
In Spanish
93 minutes
Read more of the team’s coverage of KVIFF 2024.
