"Killer of Sheep"
Odds are that you haven’t seen this film before. It’s such a rare piece of extraordinary filmmaking that has taken three decades to see the light of day. Luckily, TCM and Netflix exist to expose the masses to what is considered to be groundbreaking African-American cinema.
Director Charles Burnett assembled some of his friends to show how life was like in 1970s Watts. The presentation is raw and new even by today’s standards. Some of the highlights:
- It’s not a clean movie. It examines the life of Stan, a man who works in a slaughterhouse killing sheep. It details all his family members and their faults, socio-economical background of Watts, and the choices people make in order to survive.
- Best part of the film: Observing Stan’s young daughter sing along to Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Reasons” as she plays with her white baby doll.
- Then again, who, or rather what, is the Killer of Sheep? The killer of innocence happens at an early age as kids rough each other up and manage to rob houses. It stays in the air, in the film grain. There’s no resolution, no bow around the it. Burnett allows the film to roam free.
permalink | | film | 03/04/2008
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