Cary Fukunaga shows that he can combine art and acting brilliantly in Beasts of No Nation. As a fan of his work on True Detective, I can see similarities between the two works. Similarly to True Detective, Fukunaga brings out a surreal feeling to this film with the types of effects he uses. The film often has a feeling of a dream, or nightmare, with its colorful palette and synthesized soundtrack. One of the scenes shows a lot of red coloring, giving the audience the feeling that they are up close to the action and can see the blood splattering around the fields.
If you are incapable of watching blood and gore, I would not recommend this film to you. Personally, I felt disgusted at a lot of what was on screen. As a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, I have seen a lot of blood and gore in film, but this just felt too real. Tarantino's films are fictional and unrealistic a lot of the time, but this film is based on things that have really happened in certain countries. This is one of those films that I applaud, but also feel awkward about saying that I enjoyed it. Fukunaga definitely gets the point across that the world is still full of problems which are hard to solve.
Of course, the true brilliance of this film comes out through the acting of Abraham Attah and Idris Elba. As an innocent and lost boy, Agu (Attah's character) turns to Commandant (Elba's character) to act as a paternal figure. Attah's emotional acting displays the transformation that the confused boy goes through in becoming a sort of leader in Commandant's army. This is a kid that has a very bright acting career ahead of him. I found myself drifting further away from Agu as he becomes a harsher and less moral soldier throughout the film. Yet, I also found that I was able to connect to Commandant through Elba's performance. Elba brings the audience into the mind of a warlord as he starts to create a bond with Agu and his young army through his use of speech.
The Bottom Line: Fukunaga brings the audience into the life of a boy who has lost everything and transforms into a mature leader through the influence of a hard-spoken, but fatherly warlord.
Score: 9.7/10
If you are incapable of watching blood and gore, I would not recommend this film to you. Personally, I felt disgusted at a lot of what was on screen. As a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, I have seen a lot of blood and gore in film, but this just felt too real. Tarantino's films are fictional and unrealistic a lot of the time, but this film is based on things that have really happened in certain countries. This is one of those films that I applaud, but also feel awkward about saying that I enjoyed it. Fukunaga definitely gets the point across that the world is still full of problems which are hard to solve.
Of course, the true brilliance of this film comes out through the acting of Abraham Attah and Idris Elba. As an innocent and lost boy, Agu (Attah's character) turns to Commandant (Elba's character) to act as a paternal figure. Attah's emotional acting displays the transformation that the confused boy goes through in becoming a sort of leader in Commandant's army. This is a kid that has a very bright acting career ahead of him. I found myself drifting further away from Agu as he becomes a harsher and less moral soldier throughout the film. Yet, I also found that I was able to connect to Commandant through Elba's performance. Elba brings the audience into the mind of a warlord as he starts to create a bond with Agu and his young army through his use of speech.
The Bottom Line: Fukunaga brings the audience into the life of a boy who has lost everything and transforms into a mature leader through the influence of a hard-spoken, but fatherly warlord.
Score: 9.7/10
