Review of Beasts of No Nation (2015) by Ayberk K — 18 Oct 2015

In a year packed with so much cinematic content and block busting franchises, who would have thought that one of the most powerful and provocative films would have came from streaming service Netflix. Netflix has been on the up as of late, especially with their televised outings such as Bloodline, Bojack Horseman and Orange Is The New Black gaining critical praise and huge fan admiration.

Now comes a monumental feature length from mastermind Cary Fukunaga, the visual revolutionary behind the first season of True Detective and what else can I say about it than it is without a doubt, not only one of the best films of the year but quite possibly up there with some of the best movies of the last decade.

Based on the critically praised book, Beasts Of No Nation follows the life of Agu, a young child living in Africa, caught up in the middle of a brutal war, where any rules go. After being forced to flee his home, Agu is soon taken captive by a power hungry, detestable Commandant, who is raising a child army, fighting the military and trying to reclaim what he feels is his own.

That's all I'm going to say about it because the less you know about this film, the better. I spent the entire 2 and a half hours with my heart in my mouth, completely stunned and completely in the dark with what was coming next, its rare that a film can hold that power over an audience for that length of time, but Beasts Of No Nation is a visual and emotional roller coaster, that will leave even the hardest soul a quivering mess.

Fukunaga adapts the screenplay here and his script is just full of flavour and content, Agu will find himself being dragged through a huge array of situations and each of them are 100% relevant and well realized, the material never feels preachy, it doesnt take sides, it shows the horrors of war and huge slabs of it are done with little to no dialogue.

What dialogue there is, is presented wonderfully by Idris Elba and Abraham Attah the 2 leads of the piece, Elba has always been a force to be reckoned with, his turn as the Commandant may be his strongest and most layered.

Elba manages to make what could potentially be an extremely one note character and gives him so much depth, weight and connection, the lines are always blurred with his characters motives, you understand his motivations, his patriotism and his thirst for success, but by understanding it makes his abuse of children all the more harrowing and uncomfortable.

Attah makes his debut and what a stonking debut it is, its not often you can storm through your first outing and pretty much be forced to carry the hefty weight on your shoulders, but this child does it, this young boy shames most adult actors, who are payed millions more than he is.

His transition between cheeky young boy to child soldier is heartfelt and terrifying and I will be extremely shocked not to see him pick up an award and continued fame after his turn as the lead in this behemoth of a film.

The rest of the cast are utterly terrific, yet again its odd to see such a huge ensemble cast with every actor being utterly hypnotic, but here everyone is alive, everyone has their own character and everyone is equally as important and watching as the trials of war push these children to the max can be an extremely tough thing to do.

Visually this film is utterly ground braking, you will be hard pushed to find something so visually prominent and lush, aside from maybe Macbeth. Every single shot, is composed beautifully, utterly important and full of brilliant colour.

Africa has never looked so gorgeous and so fierce. Fukunaga also steps into the DOP position and his eye is close to perfect, Beasts Of No Nation just continually assaults you with visual delight after visual delight.

The jungles of Africa are dense and vibrant green, the costume is multi coloured and full of contrast and during some sequences the entire grade is taken to the next level, bringing a palette to the table my eyes have personally never seen before.

He also gets creative, knowing exactly what atrocities to show and how to depict them, he understands violence and action, making any battle sequence or torturous moment heartfelt and immersive, this man has seriously crafted a masterpiece here.

As for downsides, the film doesnt really have many, it could be argued that the final moments of the film dont really add a solid conclusion to the proceedings, but in retrospect its as human an ending as one could expect, refusing to succumb to wildly glossy and happy endings.

Beasts is also huge, not only is it lengthy but it is packed to the brim with content, visual and thematically and this film is not something you can just slap on and expect to turn your brain off. Beasts deserves everyone's time and effort, its a huge achievement and will open your eyes to another side of war and for anyone with a Netflix account, which would be around 70% of people, it would be a crime to miss this utterly tremendous piece.

Must watch.