Fukunaga’s Masterpiece, Beasts of No Nation Gains Oscar Buzz, Word of Mouth

In Telluride many people were saying that Beasts of No Nation, easily one of the best – if not the best – films of the year, was “too rough” for Academy members. That’s turning out not to be true, at least so far, as Ben Affleck, Elizabeth Banks, Debbie Allen and other stars have seen the film and are doing what they can to help get it seen. As you all know, every single major studio passed on Beasts of No Nation – and shame on them. It was then left to Netflix to pick up the film. Tonight, it will have its premiere with Academy members in attendance and a Q&A with Carey Fukunaga and Abraham Atta afterwards. According to people behind the film, there is an unusual number of big name advocates trying to lift it up and help it get the recognition it deserves.

This is the kind of film, after all, Hollywood should be supporting. They should still stand for something more than opening box office numbers.

Kirk Honeycutt’s writes:

There has never been a war movie like “Beasts of No Nation.” The guerrilla war on view here, primordial, hallucinatory, savage, taking place in an unnamed West African country riven by conflict, is seen entirely through the eyes of a child soldier.

Supposedly some 300,000 children are fighting in conflicts all over the globe at this very moment. Yet other than images that appear in the media of youngsters in fatigues staring out from underneath large helmets and toting fearsome assault rifles, far too little attention has been paid to this appalling phenomenon.

The movie, grim as it is, pulls you into an hallucinatory apocalypse. It makes you watch a loss of innocence and a fight to reclaim childhood by one bright-eyed, frightened boy.