War Drama double-feature!!!
"Beasts of No Nation": 2015 war drama film directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Abraham Attah and Idris Elba. Set in an unnamed African country, a young boy named Agu, played by Attah, is separated from his family and conscripted into a battalion of rebels that are part of the Native Defense Forces (NDF). The battalion is led by the charismatic Commandant, played by an absolutely menacing Idris Elba. Attah plays Agu with a wide-eyed innocence that swiftly gives way to both terror during his horrific initiation into the NDF, as well as a gradual descent into brutality and blind obedience driven by his experiences as a child soldier under the Commandant, who is not only adept at swaying and manipulating the young troops under his command, but gradually shows himself to be a ruthless and ambitious commander who actually only cares about himself. The horrors of war and the life of a child soldier is on full display here, and even as Agu kills, he is still sympathetic since the audience sees how he was forced into a life of war in the first place and how he remains highly conflicted about his own actions as a soldier under the brutal Commandant. The inner monologue from Agu helps to convey that conflict, but it must be said that much of his anguish could be gleaned just from his facial expressions alone, to the point that the monologues seem a little superfluous at times. "Beasts of No Nation" is a must-see film that fully shows how horrible the life of a child soldier would be, featuring an unflinching look at war and its effect on children embroiled in it, and a pair of amazing lead performances from Abraham Attah and Idris Elba.
"All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)": 2022 war film that is staunchly anti-war, directed by Edward Berger, starring Felix Kammerer and Daniel Brühl. Set during World War I, the film mainly focuses on Paul (Kammerer), a young German man who starts out eager to join the war and fight against German's enemies only to get a rude awakening regarding the reality of war. This film is an extremely brutal affair, with heavy focus on the many young men who are fed to the grinder of war as they realize how horrifying it is, without any true reason to fight in the war other than blind patriotism, with soldiers constantly being seen simply as a resource by high-ranking military officers and politicians. Like "Beasts of No Nation", the film is utterly uncompromising, in this case showing how soldiers and their spirits are crushed by the never-ending battle as lives are lost for a cause they don't really understand anymore. "All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)" is another excellent film showing just how terrible war is, from the perspective of a young and initially idealistic soldier who finds himself gradually crumbling from the horrors of war as more of his friends are lost in the increasingly brutal fighting. Indeed, the film offers one of the most raw looks at war in recent memory, despite being entrenched in a war that happened a century ago.
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