Beasts of No Nation (****1/2)

William Tecumseh Sherman once said "war is hell." Indeed, it's a phrase that has rolled into pop culture, and has been a focus of many films dating back as far as films go. Beasts of No Nation, an independent film released in conjunction with Netflix, is a marvelous and oftentimes dark movie that works to explore just that: that war is an attack on the soul.

It's an African civil war (and I don't even remember what country was setting to the story). Villages are falling apart, people are fleeing as refuges. The story is focused around a young boy named Agu. We first meet him carrying around a TV frame and using his friends to act out "stories" for the amusement of spectators. He is close with his brother, his mother... How much is lost when their entire town is executed and Agu narrowly escapes into the jungle.

He soon finds a militia of guerilla soldiers. Led by a powerful and intimidating Commander (the recognizable Idris Elba), Agu is taken in and sheltered, though in exchange he is developed into a child soldier who must kill the enemy without fear. The psychological breakdown of the child features some of the more disturbing moments in the film, and our first introduction to death comes when Agu's leader gives him a machete, a prisoner, and an order to kill him at this very moment.

Abraham Attah is the boy, a brilliant young actor who just about steals the movie at every turn and oversteps Jacob Tremblay from "Room" to be perhaps the most incredible performance by a youth in a film this year. From his initial requests to simply find his mother again, we trek Agu's descent into the underbellies of war, of sin, all the while we hear his prayers to God to understand that there is no other way. There's a final moment with him where he tries to justify his actions during the war and realizing that he will have to cope with these memories the rest of his life. There's a real weight on his shoulders. It's hard for me to believe that it's anything but the truth coming from this boy's mouth.

The violence in the film is truly brutal, and I was more shocked perhaps to see the majority of the bloodshed coming from these young children's hands. We have heard stories of child warriors and the horrors that come with such a robbery of innocence, but seeing it in the flesh makes it no less a difficult concept to grasp.

And yet I found beauty in the story, the potential for redemption and the gorgeous camerawork that makes this a story worthy of art and discussion. With current events the way they are and the amount of death in the news on a daily basis, "Beasts" was not a film I looked forward to watching with eagerness. I'm still glad I did.