An endless cycle of violence

Rating: 8/10 (27 October 2017)

I've always wondered what it is about Africa that makes it the most unstable continent on Earth. So much poverty, so much fighting. Beasts of no Nation shows why, through the eyes of a child soldier. It starts charmingly, with poor but happy children acting their age. But fast enough, Agu's world is torn apart as his family is killed or escapes to be never seen again. He is then manipulated to be a child soldier to, as he sees it, revenge those who killed his family. And at first, it looks like these are the good guys. But what this film is great at showing is that there are NO good guys. The first scene that causes us to question how different Agu's group really are is a scene in which Agu is persuaded to execute a captured enemy soldier. His acting is phenomenal here and you can tell that he will never be a child again. Then another shocker comes when the NPD, the rebel group Agu is fighting for, mercilessly and indiscriminately kills innocent villagers just like Agu's relatives. In a powerful moment he realises a woman they want to rape could easily be his mother. Yet these are all slaughtered for the crime of being at the wrong place. What makes this film even more heartbreaking is how beautiful the scenery is. The cinematography really captures this. How could something so evil happen somewhere do beautiful? The only gripe I have is with the ending. It's optimistic, which makes you feel hopeful for Agu but that doesn't mean it was the right way to go. In a more realistic scenario he would have ended up becoming a soldier like all the others, brutally murdering and raping villagers. There could have been a flash forward to an adult Agu doing this. Instead the makers chose the safer way out and had Agu rescued by the UN.
Beasts of no Nation is a must-see. It makes you understand the never-ending cycle of violence happening in Africa in a distressing way, through the eyes of someone who has seen things he should never have seen and done things no child his age should ever have had to do.