Killer of Sheep

Before writing this review, I read the four comments that were already posted- by tvspace, zumlinz, seabiscuit, and bartman. Their ratings ranged from two stars to ten stars, and one reviewer here (in addition to Manhola Dargis of the NY Times) hailed it as a masterpiece.

After viewing the film this afternoon at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village, I have to say that all four reviewers have valid points about the film.

It certainly has an "amateur" feel to it, including the acting of some of the smaller roles, as one of the previous reviewers pointed out. But I found much that was beautiful about it, and saw a sort of perfection in its lack of polish- polish and formula that is so commonplace today in not only big studio pictures, but many independent films as well.

While certainly not about "nothing," it does lack a conventional narrative, as was pointed out previously as well. But it is this absence of an obvious agenda (other than to portray typical, everyday life in Watts from the point of view of one family) that allows the film to work so well as a loosely structured, poetic slice of life. It is an amazing mood piece, and it made me feel quite sad. Yet there was humor, warmth, and hope scattered throughout the generally melancholy film.

I think this is the kind of film that will effect people differently, as is already evident from the first four reviews. If you don't catch this film in the theater this time around, it will be available on DVD in the fall and is well worth watching. Nowadays it seems to be in vogue with hotshot filmmakers to recreate the specific,unique look of older films, using all sorts of advanced technology to turn back the clock. Here's a chance to see the real deal-something raw and authentic from a talented filmmaker as he emerged.

Stan works in drudgery at a slaughterhouse. His personal life is drab. Dissatisfaction and ennui keep him unresponsive to the needs of his adoring wife, and he must struggle against influences which would dishonor and endanger him and his family.

Film critic Dana Stevens describes the film's plot as "a collection of brief vignettes which are so loosely connected that it feels at times like you're watching a non-narrative film." There are no acts, plot arcs or character development, as conventionally defined.

What happens in this film is not a documentary, but in many ways it may as well be. How many films really focus on the black community anywhere at any point in time? Very few. And this one does that, in all its gritty and glamorless reality.

The movie takes place in the darkness of the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. We are introduced to the endless days of those living in this black neighborhood. The main character works in a slaughterhouse, killing and butchering sheep. It is day to day drudgery. He is trying to feed his family, but it is obvious he is never going to achieve happiness. The children lead pointless lives, throwing rocks at each other, fighting, going nowhere. There are drug dealers and people with no direction. But they survive in body only. This is a really sad film. Some have complained that it has no plot. Well, the plot is the day to day existence and hopelessness of the people portrayed. The sheep are those who are trapped and try and die. Harsh film.

Yes, can be cold. Young, soon too old. What a wonderful song and film as this song.

This is the picture here; a life of drab, interminable drudgery, hard work when it does come by and small pleasure, perhaps only the slow dance before the window. They will tell you the attempt here is for neorealism, and you will maybe note how the palette and commentary has been later studied by other prominent directors, black or not. Not so here. Our gain is that it's by a filmmaker who still hasn't learned too much about the craft to lose the innocence of looking and the commitment to keep doing so. Who doesn't have a hell of a lot to say and just wants to film. And who maybe knows this life and neighborhood intimately enough to take us to where it's ordinary and real.

All things considered, it's an evocative portrait of life at the outskirts. It's raw and affective in ways that Malick had to train himself over the years to accomplish. And that Jarmusch and Gordon Green (George Washington) only mechancically repeated in later years. It is about nothing in the sense that every life is, there is no story outside what we choose to remember as one.

So this earth can be cold. But maybe not so bitter after all. It's a moment of happiness that new life is finally on the way. Are they crazy? Who'd be happy to bring a child into this? Things don't work when they should, it's all an uphill struggle to even drive to the racetrack. Love grows distant and sullen. But the kids are playing everywhere you can find them. Young, soon too old. But happy that each one gets to go through it this once?

Raw American Poetry. Killer of Sheep takes the immediacy of Italian neo-Realist cinema and shapes it into a dreamy, beautiful montage of everyday life in Watts, Los Angeles, California, in the 1970s.

The revelations, in the year 2000, are surprising: black kids in the middle of the Ghetto acted up and goofed off exactly the same as white kids in small towns across the midwest...but not like black OR white kids today. The folks in this movie have an innocence about them that survives, along with their dignity, regardless of the social decay around them. You are left with a simple fact: these are still country people, who happen to be living in a city.

For anyone, like me, who grew up in the 1970s, the movie aches with a sense of a lost era, when being a kid meant building forts out of left-over construction materials, throwing dirt clods, and laying down big fat skidmarks with your bicycle.

And all this is just the subplot. The main storyline, of a slaughterhouse-working father trying to run a stable family in the midst of urban decay, is simple, understated, and powerful. The musical sequences inside the slaughterhouse rival Kubrick's ability to juxtapose music and image in a manner that creates infinite levels of meaning and irony. You can only sit with your mouth half agape and think, 'aaah.'

Like La Jetee, this is a movie that will allow you to see life anew, with children's eyes. Never pass up a chance to see it.