The film had its world premiere in competition in Venice before going on to also screen in Toronto but regardless of its festival outcome the film is guaranteed a large audience as the first original feature film to be produced by Netflix.

Beasts of No Nation will open both theatrically world-wide and on Netflix on the same day, 16 October in a move that the global film industry will be watching carefully for the outcome of. As the debate rages in Europe over the impact of the entry of Netflix into the European market, the wisdom of day and date releases and whether the proposed Digital Single Market will become a reality and what will be the impact of DSM if it does, commercial actions like this one can be the harbinger of the digital future of European cinema.

But Netflix has not chosen easy viewing fare for its first venture into production and global theatrical and online release. The harsh world of African child soldiers was never going to be a box office blockbuster of popular entertainment.

The beauty of the African landscape stunningly captured by Fukunaga’s lensing seems to be purposely juxtaposed opposite the hideous scenes of the violence and atrocities that the child soldiers experience and participate in.

The storyline follows the book with the young boy, Agu played Ghanaian actor Abraham Attah, from an unnamed African country, which we presume to be Nigeria, orphaned when guerrillas kill his family. He is captured by a warlord known as the Commandant played by Idris Elba, who trains the boy to be a child soldier along with other captured boys.

The story is told from Agu’s point of view a device that works well in the book and less well in the film. The extraordinary performance of young Abraham Attah in his first experience as an actor is a major part of what makes the film work especially in some of its more difficult scenes.

In the book Agu experiences flashbacks to his happier, normal life with his family and friends in the village that contrast sharply with the horrors of his activities as a guerrilla. Fukunaga has simplified this into a straight narrative story beginning of scenes of Agu’s early life before he is plunged into this unexplained and never ending war of no purpose.

The world of the child soldiers is one of moral confusion as they are both victims and at the same time trained to commit the atrocities that have already been inflicted on their family and countrymen. Barely old enough to comprehend what they are doing they are left without a chance to develop a conscience or a sense of right and wrong.

The boys see the Commandant who is a harsh task-master as a father figure and at the same time he is a source of punishment and abuse.. One thing the film only skirts around that is part of the horror of the book is the Commandant’s sexual abuse of his young soldiers. Only hinted at in the film this was probably deemed too much for Netflix’s main stream audiences.

Writer and director Fukunaga already has a very successful track record of literary adaptation with his Jane Eyre and his highly regarded season directing the American crime serial True Detective. While not as powerful as the book this film will bring an important issue to a wide audience and deserves its global release on a platform like Netflix.

Credits

Beasts of No Nation (USA)
Directed by Cary Fukunaga
Cast: Idris Elba, Abraham Attah