One of the most visceral film experiences of 2015

Rating: 10/10 (4 March 2016)

"Beasts of No Nation" is one of 2015's most realistic and visceral films, an unforgettable drama detailing the experiences of a young boy named Agu who is forced into joining a group of child soldiers trained into become guerrilla killers during Nigeria's civil war. This shattering film, beautifully shot in Ghana and starring Idris Elba, was directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, a Californian born to a Japanese-American father who had been imprisoned in an internment camp during WWII. Fukunaga uses an uncompromising style that pulls no punches in showing the explicit brutal violence these children are brainwashed into committing. Although extremely graphic, ultimately it moves the viewers' hearts toward deep compassion over the children's loss of innocence, but also toward the hope for their redemption.
Fukunaga also photographed the film himself when the original DP sustained a serious injury. He not only brought a beauty to the horrendous Nigerian war-time settings, but based its look from photojournalists' coverage of the Second Liberian Civil War, and coloring the film personally to reproduce 1970's photo-chemical film stock.
Without question, this film is an important document of man's inhumanity to man that we should not cover our eyes and ignore. Fukunaga's past directorial work includes "Sin Nombre", the 2009 critically-acclaimed feature of Honduran immigrants trying to illegally cross the American border, and the first season of the TV series, "True Detective", but this film is his finest work to date. Fukunaga spent over seven years working on it, and its best sequences visually bring to mind a young Stanley Kubrick, especially in its latter scenes of great colorful poetry. Because it premiered on Netflix (it bought the worldwide distribution rights), most of the big theater chains boycotted it, so it only had a limited theater release but that's where it should be seen, and on the biggest screen possible, but you'll probably have to watch it at home.