Une histoire basée sur les expériences d'Agu, un enfant soldat combattant dans la guerre civile d'un pays africain jamais nommé.Une histoire basée sur les expériences d'Agu, un enfant soldat combattant dans la guerre civile d'un pays africain jamais nommé.Une histoire basée sur les expériences d'Agu, un enfant soldat combattant dans la guerre civile d'un pays africain jamais nommé.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- Nomination aux 1 BAFTA Award
- 31 victoires et 59 nominations au total
- Village Constable
- (as Ricky Adelayitor)
- Pastor
- (as Fred Amugi)
- Paramount Chief
- (as Ernest Abbequay)
Avis à la une
This is a methodical depiction of the brutalization of a childhood. Idris Elba has a commanding powerful presence. The kid is an appealing performer. That's why his corruption is so demoralizing. It's a harsh, heart-breaking movie. It's a Netflix movie that is cinematic in quality. The plot is pretty simple and the kid's journey is relatively straight forward. Fukunaga delivers an unflinching look into this slice of the world.
Its about a kid who loses his family to war then is forced to join the mercenaries. We watch his transformation from an innocent child into a soldier as he questions his own actions and trying to survive.
The story follows this young boy, Agu, as he becomes deeper and deeper involved in the rebel army under the wing of the Commandant, played by Idris Elba. Both of these performances are simply excellent. Elba is often terrifying as the warmongering troop leader, and his unnerving performance is key to making this such an unsettling and disturbing film.
However, even Idris Elba is outshone by the stunning performance given by the young Abraham Attah, who plays Agu. Attah does a brilliant job at showing his character's transformation over the course of the story, from an innocent young boy to a hardened warrior in one of the most brutal wars on the planet.
This ties in perfectly, then, with the main theme of the film, which is all about the way that war destroys innocence entirely and replaces it with only doom and despair. In that, you can see that this is clearly an anti-war film, but it fortunately doesn't present itself so much as that, only giving you its powerful message if you concentrate hard enough and look for the details telling you about the destruction that war has brought to this place.
I say that because this film is, on the whole, not the most fast- paced, and if you watch it with your brain turned off, you'll likely be bored, because it's quite long, and hasn't got much action at all, it's the power and emotion of the underlying themes that provides the horrifying punch that makes this so compelling and upsetting.
Cary Joji Fukunaga's directing is also stunning. As well as making a simply beautiful film to look at, the way he directs every scene works brilliantly in tandem with whatever the film is trying to say. There are so many astonishing long shots of individuals' faces, particularly focused on Agu, and they just have such an incredible emotional power when you really look deep into their situation.
Abraham Attah's performance as a young boy who has clearly been through hell is of course integral to making that emotion clear, but the inventive and beautiful directing really aggrandises that feeling of total despair and loss of innocence, which is why this film is just such an incredible one to watch.
Coppola's film is an apt point of comparison for the effect of Beasts of No Nation, as well as Platoon and The Thin Red Line. Battered by explosions and gunfire, you come out of the film wearing the same thousand yard stare as its characters. At that point, it's easy to forget the delights of the first ten minutes as Abraham Attah's Agu playfully hustles his living, selling shells of television sets with his friends. It's not a perfect life, but the energy is reminiscent of the less dangerous sections of City of God. It's only from that light that the darkness hits hardest and invests you in Agu's plight and losses. However, this is as rocky as the roller-coaster gets. The next 2 hours is an absorbing barrage of misery and brutal dilemmas. The narrative thread is very loose, and perhaps some is lost in translation with the character's thick accents, but this is part of its point, especially in utilising child soldiers who won't know the ins and outs of what's going on anyway.
This aimlessness of the mission and the way that the war is so much bigger than the soldiers and battalions demonstrates that there is no way into peace from war. The kids are fighting for a future that they won't be able to find solace in, neither from eventual living and economical conditions, nor inner peace from the atrocities they've committed. These bleak ideas hit hard. And like Malick's The Thin Red Line, a relationship with God in war is challenged. It's questioned whether it's possible or fair to have spiritual happiness after such sins. There is very poor foresight in war, and after only briefly touching a jarring scene where they visit the higher ups, it benefits no-one on the battleground. The film never preaches these messages, instead relying on the fact that we know how heartbreakingly true it is despite how far removed most of us will be.
Abraham Attah absolutely disappears into his role. He's not showy, but just completely immersed in the film whether he's soaking in events or lashing out against them. He's easily the biggest discovery here. However, I expected great things from Elba after the hype and while he is good, it wasn't the tour de force performance I anticipated. That's just not how the character ended up being written. He has memorable moments but he teeters undefinably on the line between a manipulative villain and a manipulative mentor. He's no doubt an opportunist, but the film doesn't explore his character to the full extent, and the most dramatic moments are quite familiar as they're staples in other war films. Beasts stands out by having such a young boy other end of those dilemmas. Elba is perhaps too polished to go with the inherent rawness of the rest of the cast.
Fukunaga's cinematography is quite good, not boasting the same tricks as True Detective, but also clearly battling against the elements. It certainly has atmosphere. The style favours ambient music over montages of the war scenes and while that makes it flow together it also means that its surprises fall by the periphery. I can imagine that this will play well on Netflix, granted you give it full attention on a big HD television. The cinema projection does suffer from added graininess but that is rarely a problem via the internet and should compliment Fukunaga's cinematography a little more. I imagine that it will garner a divided reaction, with some finding it too hard to bare through the whole thing, but I can't imagine it getting much Oscar traction based on passion alone. It will be a pleasant and worthy surprise if it does score any nominations. At least an admirable effort that will be being remembered as one of the most notable war films of this decade.
8/10
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And if people can get past the premise, they will find themselves watching a gripping film. A tough one, yes, and one that might make your stomach churn. But it's extremely well made, with excellent performances from child actor Abraham Attah and Idris Elba, as the child protagonist and the leader who recruits him, respectively. This young child experiences a multitude of things, any one of which would permanently scar virtually anyone. And the film doesn't offer a contrived happy-ish ending to reward us for sitting through the suffering, which is one of the things I most appreciated about it. Because let's be honest; is there even a remote chance that stories like the one told here could end happily?
In this year of bickering about the whiteness of the Oscars, this film and its lack of nominations being held up repeatedly as an example, I can at least feel like I did my part -- you don't get much further away from white Hollywood and the stories it likes to tell than this film.
Grade: A-
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesCary Joji Fukunaga cast real former child soldiers and members of the various factions from the Sierra Leone and Liberian Civil War such the Liberian Armed Forces, the LURD, and the CDF as extras and consultants but they ran into difficulty getting everyone onto the set in Ghana because they were held up in the Ivory Coast as suspected mercenaries.
- GaffesWhen Preacher confronts the Commandant to say that he is leaving, the Commandant calls him Two I-C, who died earlier in the story.
This is not necessarily a goof. Two I-C is a rank (Second in Command), not a name. When the first Two I-C is killed, presumably on Commandant's orders, Commandant needs to delegate a new deputy leader and chooses Preacher. This is why Preacher's decision to leave carries such weight, and why he later opts to return to the bush.
- Citations
Agu: I saw terrible things... and I did terrible things. So if I'm talking to you, it will make me sad and it will make you too sad. In this life... I just want to be happy in this life. If I'm telling this to you... you will think that... I am some sort of beast... or devil. I am all of these things... but I also having mother... father... brother and sister once. They loved me.
- ConnexionsFeatured in Late Night with Seth Meyers: Idris Elba/Tony Goldwyn/Pete Davidson (2015)
- Bandes originalesIlluminati
Written by Michael Owusu Addo and Joseph Anthony Bulley
Performed by Randy Aflakpui, Abdul Mumin Mutawaki, Emmanuel Osei
Meilleurs choix
Détails
Box-office
- Budget
- 6 000 000 $US (estimé)
- Montant brut aux États-Unis et au Canada
- 90 777 $US
- Week-end de sortie aux États-Unis et au Canada
- 51 003 $US
- 18 oct. 2015
- Montant brut mondial
- 90 777 $US
- Durée2 heures 17 minutes
- Couleur
- Rapport de forme
- 2.39 : 1