Movie Review: "Beasts of No Nation"

Beasts of No Nation (2015)

No Rating

4.5 Stars out of 5

Director                                                Cary Fukunaga
Writer                                                   Cary Fukunaga (screenplay), Uzodinma Iweala (book, 2005)

Agu                                                        Abraham Atta
Francis Weddey                                   Big Brother
Kobina Amissah-Sam                          Father
Idris Alba                                              Commandant
Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye             Strika

 

Writer/Director Cary Fukunaga first gained public critical notice with his heartbreaking 2009 film, “Sin Nombre”, a story of a Honduran girl trying to immigrate to the United States. At about the same time, he was doing research on a brutal war in Sierra Leone, a war that employed child soldiers. He later came across Uzodinma Iweala’s book on the same subject, “Beast of No Nation”. In October of 2015, Fukunaga’s film of the same name was brought simultaneously to the public via release to theaters and on Netflix. This latter point was an unfortunate decision on Netflix’ part as it caused the four largest theater chains in America to boycott the film – and that is a shame. “Beasts of No Nation” is not a perfect film, and it certainly is a very difficult film to watch due its subject material, but it also a movie that of necessity uses violence to tell a story the world needs to know: the use of child soldiers.

Fukunaga begins his story in a seemingly disarming manner. His camera follows the family life of Agu (Abraham Atta), a twelve-ish year old boy living in an unnamed Central West African country. Agu lives with his parents, senile grandfather, beloved older brother and two younger siblings. His father and older brother are shown interacting with Agu in a variety of well-developed scenes designed to show just how much they love each other as a family. Agu is shown to be very precocious as he leads his fellows in games that demonstrate their camaraderie and intelligence. If one knows the background of this movie, one surely knows Fukunaga is using a kind of contrary for-shadowing of events to come. One of the last moments of this ideal set of events has Agu selling a TV set frame to a soldier from ECOMOG (Economic Community of Western States Monitory Group). It is a gentle scene that shows the concern the ECOMOG soldier has for the boy (and presumably for the nation he is helping to protect) and of the boy’s creativity – it might be the best scene in the movie, though the final scene is also simply brilliant and hopeful at the same time.

We know from Agu’s frank and childlike narration to the film that his country is at war. He and his family seem to live comfortably with this knowledge; they do until the inevitable happens, war comes to their village. Agu is able unlike some of this family to survive; it is left unclear as to else in his family might also have survived; we know that not all do so.

Agu’s desperate, world shaking escape into the jungle takes him from a form of modern Africa into a far different world, one more natural in the sense of the abundant plant life he walks through, and also in the sense that he now has no parent to guide and shield him, nor even water or food. He is driven to eat grass and insects. But worse awaits him. Agu is captured by the rebels that have been fighting Agu’s government, and from whom the ECOMOG troops had been trying to protect his village. The real horror of Agu’s predicament is now made painfully clear as the leader (Idris Elba) of the rebel battalion that has Agu begins a process of converting Agu from boy into killer. This process is filled with eye-averting violence and stomach-wrenching irony. Agu’s first exposure to his own role as killer has him murder a man seemingly innocent of the government’s treachery against its own people. Agu’s natural indecision about murder is contrasted with the man pleading for his life. Later in the movie after Agu’s heart has apparently been hardened, he first clings to a woman he believes is his mother only to callously shoot her later.

Agu’s acceptance into the battalion as a full member requires his acceptance of the battalion’s mindless brutality and of his commandant’s absolute authority. Agu and his mates yell out slogans as they march; slogans designed to prepare them for battle but also to continue their religious subservience to the commandant. Both Atta’s portrayal as Agu and Elba’s as the commandant are absolutely first rate performances. It is easy to praise young Atta’s command of his role as Agu as he gradually progresses from the aforementioned precocious village child to a frightened waif to brutal killer to child again as he reminisces about how his family loved him; and this latter part right after confessing that he should be thought a beast for what he has done. Elba’s performance is equally brilliant as he navigates the line between fatherly leader to Agu and the others, to practical military commander, to an egotist that has confused his military role with his assumed God-like role to his battalion.

This movie utilizes excellent writing in creating a story arc (one that does not surprise, admittedly), outstanding character definition and growth, and a morally compelling theme of the effects of war on the affected children. It is at times an excruciating film to watch, but it is story that Westerners need to see. They need to see the effects of their colonial practices in Africa; effects that included destroying the existing social order, erasing historical tribal boundaries, and doing so without installing a stable replacement. It is almost certainly true that the wars that have lately waged throughout Central West Africa and Central Africa have many causes, and likely not all the blame can be laid at doorstep of the West (I leave room for simple brutal humanity as well). That being said, it is the effects that must be dealt with now, origins aside, and the first step to dealing with the situation must come from greater awareness of those effects. “Beasts of No Nation” is a good introduction to such an awful topic.