MovieChat Forums > Beasts of No Nation (2015) Discussion > The molestation game

The molestation game

posted 9 years ago by jaym89
23 replies | jump to latest

What is the first scene that comes to your mind when you think about the movie?

Today I thought back about the movie. And the first thing that came to my mind was the molestation of Agu by the commander. That scene overshadowed everything, and that's not OK for the message of the movie, because it should be a movie about child soldiers and now it's just a movie about molestation. I don't think: oh man somebody has to stop war in those countries because child soldiers, murder, families destroyed blabla. The movie makes me just think: man somebody has to stop those child molesters around the world. And I don't really think that was intended to be the message of the movie.

If that scene wouldn't be there, my first thought about the movie would be
a) Agu killing the engineer
b) child soldiers stomping on a baby
c) Strika dying

And it would have been OK because I think that was the intended message of the movie. Even Agu suffered after the molestation - or was shown suffering by choices of scenes - more than he suffered after killing the first engineer or every other situation he had to live through.

The solution to this could have been a little more subtle. The molestation wouldn't have been in the foreground of the movie if they would have depicted it like Strikas molestation in the camp.

[–] moralesmassin 9 years ago

OP is almost too dumb for words and needs to learn to watch a movie. As many people pointed out (and how it should be evident) the prevalescense of the child molestation only exists in the OP`s head.

I actually think they downplayed rape in the movie, showing it graphically only once with the woman and the baby, and made much more emphasys on the violence. As I understand children in those situations do not only see rape very often but are forced to participate in it, and the molestation does not restrict itself to an officer like the Commandant.

The dumb dumb who opened this thread needs to understand that when you are going to generalize something about a movie, you need to have solid examples. "I could think of nothing else" is not an example, is your inhability to know other people experience things differently from you. Why am I even explaining this?!? I`m not a special Ed teacher.

I just watched the movie and the scene that will haunt me is the second to last: "I`ve seen terrible things and done terrible things. If I tell them to you you will think I`m some kind of beast, or a demon. But I had a mother. I had a father. I had a bother and a little sister. Once. I was loved".
God damn it I almost cried. Because you remember the scenes with his family and then you know that`s not there to make the war seem more horrible. It`s there to tell you they are still children, they are still people, even when they behaved like monsters. That`s the entire movie in one dialogue.

I`m reading everything in an african accent now. You?

[–] guccipix 9 years ago

The purpose of the film is to depict the sh-t that child soldiers have to go through. Not just some of it, but everything.

http://letterboxd.com/guccipix/list/my-top-100-favorite-films/

[–] under_constant_review 9 years ago

I agree, and posted another reason why the pedophilia aspect t was bothersome to this otherwise great movie.

america is at an awkward stage.Its too late to work in the system n too early to shoot the bastards