Diary entries forBeasts of No Nation
Beasts of No Nation
92/100 Check out war films ranked - boxd.it/sBwm6 (https://boxd.it/sBwm6) Can we normalise giving Oscars to kids again because that is exactly what Abraham Attah deserves or deserved rather, a flawless performance from start to finish. You are seeing a boy all happy, playing games breaking down his father’s TV and selling it to the soldiers, having the freedom to roam around with friends doing all kinds of mischief become a militant, a ruthless killer who in the heart of it is just longing for his mom who let’s face it most likely died the moment she stepped into that car. This movie is about a boy going through what he should not even be seeing let alone doing it, it’s about a boy who gets indoctrinated into a world that he was shielded from for so long and look how easy it is. The moment you put the right motivation in a kid’s head, he will follow you to the ends of Earth as long as he feels he’s made you happy, he’s kept you satisfied even when you are stealing his innocence from him in every way possible, you are grabbing him from the inside and dragging him through the atrocities until he becomes to one to have had enough and ultimately give in to do so. “The only way not to be fighting anymore is to be dying.” You are pushing a boy to suicidal thoughts because he cannot tolerate what he has become anymore. That is what’s most haunting about it all. Sure he joins them, does the dirty work but eventually grows tired of doing it all, his little mind can comprehend what he is doing is wrong yet the older ones around him do not have a mind of their own. I suppose what has happened to them is what would happen to Agu had the Commandant just become the general like he was promised. The change in fortune changes his thinking along with the rest around him. When he says at the end that he’s seen more and done more than she could ever imagine, that is what we want to avoid, let a child be a child but such is the world that a child carries a gun and because his mind is being shaped, he cannot be stopped as long as there is food in his belly and clothes on his back, he is happy to go along the route of perceived vengeance with that tiny mission of meeting his mother again in the back of his mind until that fades away and all he is left with is the group of militants around him who were once him. He has become a beast with the purpose of killing under false pretences, he has as you would at last say brainwashed. My only real criticism of this film is that I wanted more from Agu’s perspective; I recently saw Nickel Boys and while the entire film being in 1st person frustrated me, some sequences were much better in that manner and that should’ve been adapted here, 1st person view of Agu when he’s killing, being raped by the Commandant or watching his compatriots raping, torturing etc. That would’ve made it more gut wrenching and given us a sense of what the world looks like to him and how his brain is reacting to it all.
Beasts of No Nation
El director Cary Fukunaga saca a flote una historia contundente de violencia y odio,Que estremece por su visión cruda y cautivadora de inocencia troncada.
