Beasts of No Nation
In a West African country, a young boy is adopted by rebel soldiers and turned into something unspeakable.
No reason on God’s earth should entitle anybody to invade another’s home and to take or harm what is precious to them. Because war shows no respect for the innocent or the good. Uzodinma Iweala’s 2005 novel of the same name identifies no specific nation, but reflects the ongoing conflicts in West Africa where factions fight factions in the name of some sort of vengeance.
Agu (Abraham Attah) is a young boy who lives in a village dedicated to peace and the God that bestows it. Although poor, Agu and his siblings have enough to eat and are grateful for a sense of family and community and for the natural beauty around them. Then, one day, a convoy of military vehicles arrives and Agu watches as his father and best friend are executed on the spot. Escaping into the jungle, the boy struggles to stay alive when an unseen rebel army emerges from the undergrowth and adopts him and trains him to be a man: to defend himself, to smoke, to get high, to kill…
Under the direction of Cary Joji Fukunaga, Beasts of No Nation emerges as an authentic portrait of a self-destructing state and of the madness of war. Fukunaga remains one of the most skilful storytellers of our time, his reach embracing the refugee crisis of Central America (in Sin Nombre), Jane Eyre (the Mia Wasikowska version) and James Bond (No Time to Die). Here, he totally immerses the viewer into a surreal conflict in which bullets take on a ubiquitous, arbitrary and lethal presence. “Bullet is,” Agu recounts in his faltering English, “eating everything.” But the indefensible spreads beyond mere munitions, in which the destruction of beautiful things becomes a game for the battalion of child soldiers.
As with every Fukunaga film, the production values are in a class of their own, from the sound and costume design to the cinematography and editing. As the posturing, fearless Commandant of the rebel faction, Idris Elba plays a man of incomprehensible evil and was nominated for a Golden Globe and Bafta. However, due to the film’s premiere on Netflix, it was boycotted by major cinema chains and considered ineligible for Oscar consideration. But that was then. In the interim, it seems that this staggering piece of cinema has largely been lost in the streaming tide.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Idris Elba, Kurt Egyiawan, Jude Akuwudike, Emmanuel ‘King King’ Nii Adom Quaye, Abraham Attah, Fred Amugi, Richard Pepple.
Dir Cary Joji Fukunaga, Pro Amy Kaufman, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Riva Marker, Jeffrey Skoll, Daniel Crown, Idris Elba and Uzodinma Iweala, Screenplay Cary Joji Fukunaga, from the novel by Uzodinma Iweala, Ph Cary Joji Fukunaga, Pro Des Inbal Weinberg, Ed Mikkel E. G. Nielsen and Pete Beaudreau, Music Dan Romer, Costumes Jenny Eagan, Sound Joshua Fielstra.
Red Crown Productions/Primary Productions/Participant Media/Parliament of Owls- Artificial Eye/Sony Pictures/Netflix.
136 mins. USA. 2015. UK and US Rel: 16 October 2015. Cert. 15.
