Where the River Begins (2026) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: for entering the water
Take a Drink: for languages other than Spanish
Take a Drink: whenever they get a helping hand
Do a Shot: for cell phones, even at the edge of the world
By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers) –
For whatever or rather a variety of reasons, there are certain countries that I seek out in any film festival lineup- if a film from South Korea, Peru, or New Zealand features, I’m more likely to prioritize it. You can add Colombia to the list now- it’s a film industry on an absolute run of quality the last decade or so.
Where the River Begins follows a young native girl named Yajaira, her daughter Maria, and Jhon, the gangbanger who asks to tag along on a journey from the urban jungle of Bogota to the more literal one, where she hopes she can start over again.
A Toast
Fire, water, and darkness- it’s hard to start out a film more arrestingly. It’s clear from the outset that director Juan Andrés Arango and DP Nicolas Canniccioni have incredible eyes. The cinematography is transporting, as they find the drama and majesty in everyday humble surroundings, in decay and patchwork repairs, in faded paint and rusted metal. This is immersive filmmaking at its finest.
As befits the land that birthed it, there are intriguing threads of magical realism running through this story. One spectacular tracking shot carries us through an apartment complex/compound, briefly through a jungle passage, and back to the concrete stairs and cells. The jungle is never far away in this story, even when it’s thousands of miles away.
That’s because it’s clear the jungle is still very much a part of Yajaira- she longs to go back, as evidenced by her visions and her warnings to others that this urban sprawl will ultimately kill or posses them all. We later learn a paramilitary occupation is why they left in the first place- for all its dangers, the city is a safer place for now, despite the toll it takes on the soul. As they get closer, they hear the guerillas traded in their guns, sure, but that just allowed them to come down from the mountains and even more directly take over the towns in their sphere of influence as the dominant criminal enterprise.
Despite all that, this small group, but in particular Yajaira, remains undeterred. Jhon is hiding a terrible secret, but even this Yajaira defers to the jungle after learning of it. The jungle is the ultimate judge, but it is also a giver of life- perhaps even a new one.
Beer Two
Even in a film that’s literally about going back to nature, everyone has a cell phone, and they sure hold a charge better than mine does. A pivotal plot point even hinges on Jhon not being smart enough to set a passcode. Smartphones, can’t escape ’em.
Verdict
Where the River Begins is another stunning Colombian story of youth living on the edge of society, and the call of the jungle that may be their salvation.
