Movie Review: Beasts of No Nation

Beasts of No Nation
Directed by: Cary Joji Fukunaga.
Written by: Cary Joji Fukunaga based on the novel by Uzodinma Iweala.
Starring: Abraham Attah (Agu), Idris Elba (Commandant), Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye (Strika), Ama K. Abebrese (Mother), Kobina Amissah-Sam (Father), Francis Weddey (Big Brother).

Beasts of No Nation is a harrowing cinematic experience, about how one African child is turned into a murderer with relative ease by a man who shows him just a little bit of fatherly affection. The film takes place in an unnamed African country and is about a conflict between the government and rebels who are fighting about something that is never really defined. This is all done on purpose of course – the film doesn’t want to get bogged down in specifics, to have a debate over who is right and who is wrong, because basically to the film it doesn’t matter. Its vagueness bothered me a little bit – for the most part, art that is universal is grounded in specifics – you first have to believe in those before you can make a larger point, and Beasts of No Nation avoids them entirely. Then again, the main story is so gripping – and does show specifics in other ways – like the way this child is turned into a murderer that perhaps I’m over-reacting.

The film stars Abraham Attah, in a terrific performance, as Agu a boy living in Africa with a teacher for a father, and a strong family unit. The last time there was a conflict, his family was on the winning side – and there are some hurt feelings in some of their neighbors – but mainly his is an idyllic life. This time though, as their village descends into chaos, they will not be so lucky. His mother, and sister, are able to flee – but Agu has to stay behind with his father and brother. Government soldiers show up, and line all the men up – including Agu – and ask an old local woman – one of those bitter at his family – if she knows them, and she says they’re rebels. The soldiers start ruthlessly killing the men – and this is when Agu takes off, on a terrifying run into the jungle. Eventually, he will come across another group – one made up of soldiers his same age and not much older – and led by The Commandant (Idris Elba). The Commandant takes Agu under his wing – gives him a chance to get revenge on those who killed his family. He also seems charming, likable, smart and well-spoken – at first, Agu looks at him as combination father/big brother – two people he just saw slaughtered before his eyes. It does not take too much prodding to turn Agu into a killer – although unlike some of the other child soldiers, he does retain at least some of his morality.

Beasts of No Nation is a violent film – as it pretty much has to be – but perhaps it is a touch too violent. Screenwriter-director Cary Joji Fukunaga is extremely talented – he showed that in his first two films, Sin Nombre and Jane Eyre, as well as in season 1 of True Detective, where his expert direction helped to overcome some of the writings rough patches (the two lead performances helped as well), and he does a magnificent job here as well in many sequences. In terms of the violence, the film is more effective the less it shows – when it does get really violent – like the scene of the first Agu participates in, or in a scene where Agu and some of friends go into a house and the others start to rape a woman (Agu stops that – in the bloodiest way possible) there is a little too much bloodlust for my tastes – the camera lingers for too long, soaking in all the blood, and not in a way calibrated to horrify the audience. It doesn’t help that aside from Agu and The Commandant, none of the other characters are given any sort of depth – so we are basically watching characters we don’t know slaughtering other characters we don’t know.

What the movie gets right – brilliantly so – is in the relationship between Agu and The Commandant. We see The Commandant through Agu’s eyes for the whole movie, and it’s fascinating to watch how Agu’s perception of him changes, and how Elba’s performance takes on more and more depth. At first, it’s hard not to see him as the cool father figure/older brother – he has control over all of these men, he gives them all guns, and they are fearless in battle, killing their enemies. He’s nice to Agu when no one else is, and wins him over. Through the course of the movie however, Agu’s perception of him changes – first in a scene where The Commandant does something to Agu he is not anticipating, after turning on his charm even more (this scene – and it’s immediate aftermath, where Agu is comforted by another of child soldiers, who knows precisely what happened is an example of how Beasts of No Nation is more effective when it shows less) – and finally in the last act of the movie, where the mask of The Commandant’s power slips – and Agu sees how this man he thought was all powerful is anything but – the powerful man revealed as rather pathetic.

I do wish that Beasts of No Nation had something a little larger to show about Africa than the film ultimately does. One of the things that is fascinating is that whenever Americans make a film about Africa is either a colorful travelogue for white people, or about the cruelty of the Africans themselves – sometimes including a white savior, sometimes not – yet when I see African films, they are often more cheerful and alive – showing a broader specter of African culture than American filmmakers seem interested in. Beasts of No Nation is a very good film – it is expertly crafted by Fukunaga (the director more so than the writer) and does feature two excellent performances. I just wish it cast its net a little bit wider than it does.  

Movie Review: Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre *** ½
Directed by: Cary Fukunaga.
Written by: Moira Buffini based on the novel by Charlotte Brontë.
Starring: Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre), Michael Fassbender (Rochester), Jamie Bell (St. John Rivers), Judi Dench (Mrs. Fairfax), Su Elliot (Hannah), Holliday Grainger (Diana Rivers), Tamzin Merchant (Mary Rivers), Amelia Clarkson (Young Jane), Craig Roberts (John Reed), Sally Hawkins (Mrs. Reed), Imogen Poots (Blanche Ingram).

According to the IMDB, there have been 22 adaptations of Jane Eyre over the years – six from the silent era, 10 made for TV and a Bollywood version among them. And that does not even include the classic horror film I Walked with a Zombie, which took the basic outline of the story for its model. I haven’t seen all of these versions, but I have seen two of the previous official incarnations – Robert Stevenson’s 1943 version with Joan Fontaine and Jane and Orson Welles as Rochester, and the 1996 version with Charlotte Gainsbourgh as Jane and William Hurt as Rochester. Although those are both fine films, there always seemed to be something lacking that marred the films in some ways. I think the problem with both versions is that neither of the Jane’s seemed young, innocent or naïve enough to fill the role properly. Fontaine was barely younger than Welles at all when they made the film – putting them on equal ground – and although there is a significant age difference between Gainsbourgh and Hurt, Gainsbourgh it seems to me has always seemed older than she actually is (and since she was 25 when she made the film, she was still too old to play Jane). That Gainsbourgh and Hurt lacked any real sexual connection hurt the film even more.

All of this leads to the most recent adaptation of Jane Eyre, by filmmaker Cary Fukunaga, who at first seems like an odd choice to direct the film. His only previous film was the Spanish language Sin Nombre, about two young, teenagers trying to cross the border from Mexico into America for very different reasons. That film was a great debut, and in Jane Eyre he proves it was no fluke. What the films share, I think, is an attention to detail, attention to the small character traits that make his characters feel human. You believe the connection between the teenagers in Sin Nombre, even though they are so different, and you feel the connection here between Rochester and Jane – and that makes the oft told tale feel vital and alive in a way the previous adaptations did not.

Fukunaga owes a debt to his actors, who play the roles pretty much perfectly. Mia Wasikowska (seen last year in The Kids Are All Right and Alice in Wonderland), gives her best performance yet as Jane. Her Jane is younger, more naïve than previous versions. She is also more touchingly fragile and human. Michael Fassbender, that great actor who has delivered magnificent but wholly different performances in films like Hunger, Inglorious Basterds and Fish Tank, has the right mix of cruelty and animal magnetism as Rochester. He is a secretive man, who keeps everyone at a distance, and his secrets locked away. Their romance is one where they both fight to resist their urges – to deny themselves what they really desire, but cannot act on. Because almost all of the sexual tension is never spoken of directly, these roles require actors to have a deeper connection that the audience can feel, even in scenes where it appears like the leads are talking about something entirely different. Wasikowska and Fassbender have that connection in this movie. The two leads are aided greatly by Judi Dench, who seems to be in every British costume drama but is great in nearly all of them, as Rochester’s maid Mrs. Fairfax. She observes everything, knows everything, but says little of consequence, like all good maids in stories like this. She speaks more in code than anything else, and feels for young Jane as she sees her get sucked in by Rochester, but admires him too much to say anything. Then there is Jamie Bell as poor Rivers, who will never understand what passion is.

Casting in a movie like Jane Eyre is really only half the battle. The other half is all about mood and atmosphere, and Fukunaga gets that just about perfect as well. From the opening scene of Jane running across the foggy moors, to the flashback of her childhood, raised in a mansion by her cruel aunt, before being sent to a crueler orphanage, and then finally to Rochester’s spacious estate Thornhill, Jane Eyre is a triumph of art direction and costume design – and perhaps even more of cinematography. Cinematographer Adriano Goldman makes this Jane Eyre dark, ominous and perhaps even spooky at times, which serves the movie well. The melancholy score by Dario Marianelli helps the atmosphere tremendously as well.

Watching Jane Eyre, I was surprised by how involved I became in it, even though I knew the story well. Perhaps that’s because the story’s big, third act reveal doesn’t really matter very much at all – what matters is that Rochester has something holding him back, not really what that something is. But freed from trying to figure out what was going to happen, I was able to concentrate on the nuances of the film, and that is what this film gets so right. Jane Eyre is one of the early highlights of the year.

Movie Review: Sin Nombre

Sin Nombre *** ½
Directed By: Cary Fukunaga.
Written By: Cary Fukunaga.
Starring: Edgar Flores (Willy/El Casper), Paulina Gaitan (Sayra), Kristian Ferrer (El Smiley), Tenoch Huerta (Lil Mago), Diana Garcia (Martha Marlene).

Sin Nombre is a film about two very different people who are both trying to cross over the border from Mexico in America, but for very different reasons. Unlike the recent film Crossing Over, which tried very hard to look at the issue of illegal immigration from every angle and failed, Sin Nombre simply tells the story of these two people running away from their past and trying to start a better future for themselves. They are under no delusions that life in America will be easy, but it’s got to beat what they have in their home countries. They simply want to get out.

Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) is from Honduras, and is being raised by her uncle and grandmother. Her mother died years ago, and her father left for America, where he eventually settled in New Jersey and started a new family. But he comes home to get his daughter, and his brother, to try and make the journey again. He wants his family with him. They walk a long way until they cross the border into Mexico. Then they hope a train. Like old movies we see of the great depression, they these are packed with people who climb onto the roof on the train and make their journey, trying to avoid border patrol and police all the way. The constant threat of deportation, or worse death, hangs over their every moment.

Willy (Edgar Flores) is in a gang in the slums of Mexico. They gang doesn’t seem to do very much except hang around, commit small burglaries, and kill members of their rival gang. Willy, who is none in the Gang as El Casper, has taken Smiley (Kristian Ferrer) under his wing and has gotten him initiated into his gang. This involves being beat up by the entire gang for 13 seconds, and then killing a member of their rivals. Smiley, who is no more than about 12, wants to be in the gang badly, and so he does whatever Willy tells him to. Willy also has a girlfriend – Martha Marlene (Diana Garcia), but she is not the typical “hood rat” that the other gangs members have. She is middle class, and doesn’t understand why Willy tries to hide her from his friends. She shows up at one of their meetings, and it’s the worst mistake of her life. Lil Mago (Tenoch Huerta), the gang’s leader, escorts her away from the group, and tries to rape her. When she fights back, he kills her. He tells Willy not to worry about it – he can find someone else – and then takes Willy and Smiley on a mission to rob the immigrants on the train. Willy, still angry, snaps when Lil Mago starts going after Sayra, and kills him. Now, the entire gang, including Smiley, is after him, so he stays on the train to try get out of the country. Sayra, grateful that he saved her, hangs around him even though he tells her he is trouble.

This is just the beginning of the movie, which continues on their journey on the train throughout Mexico, and flashes back to the gang closing in on Willy. The film is about these people on their journey North, trying to escape the hell of their lives back home. Sayra is the films most sympathetic character, because she is a young, beautiful girl simply trying her best to hold onto to her family, and make a better life for herself. Illegal immigrants, who are often villified and treated like scum by the news shows in America, risk their lives for weeks on end just to get a chance to come to America and live out their dream. Yes, what they are doing is illegal, but they have endured so much to get there.

Willy is less sympathetic, because after all, we know he has killed, probably more than once in the past. But writer/director Cary Fukunaga does an excellent job of showing the inner dynamic in the gang, and how much of a pull it is towards young men. Young Smiley seems like an innocent kid, but during the course of the movie, his fate will be sealed forever. Willy, a little older, a little wiser, has finally realized the hollowness and emptiness of gang life, and just wants to get out, even though he knows it is impossible. Once you become a gang member, you’re one for life, and getting out isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Writer/director Cary Fukunaga has made an excellent debut film. A winner at the Sundance film festival for Best Director and Best Cinematography, Fukunaga’s films has a more classical, less flashy style than many young directors take these days. This is not a movie full of shaky, handheld camera work, and constant, flashy editing, but a movie that takes it’s time to establish its characters and their stories, and whose shot have a richness and texture that is rare in independent movies these days.

The movie makes a few wrong turns along the way, as Sayra does something that I don’t believe she would do, simply so that Fukunaga can advance the plot a little more, and get his two main characters alone. But this is a small gripe with what is otherwise a wonderful little movie. In a season where every week seems to bring us another huge blockbuster, full of explosions, inane dialogue and cookie cutter characters, Sin Nombre is a reminder of what movies should be like. It’s a personal highlight during this season of blockbusters.