Refreshing window on Africa.

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2016)

As an American I was pleased to see this ground-level view of the conflicts in Africa of the last 25 years. I applaud Netflix for adopting the film as one of its own. I have followed these conflicts in international news. I have known immigrants here in the U.S. who were displaced by these conflicts.
The film is a bit generic. By that I mean it has the super-realism of bloody violence but maintains the feel of a stage play. Scenes tend toward tableau rather than a blend of related events as they might occur. This is fine, but felt like a buffer between me as a viewer and the horrors portrayed.
The perversion of children by poverty and violence is very well represented. Agu, the central character, conveys the process of descent into hell from a nurtured and deceptively secure childhood. I think the film could have contained more inner-voice commentary on his experiences. His voiced thoughts were very compelling.
I was most impressed by the end of the film. The straight forward portrayal of his trauma while in a refuge for child warriors was stunning. This brought the film back out of the typical genre of war movies into the realm of psychological drama. Abraham Attah's performance was most impressive in these scenes.