Killer of Sheep
Dir: Charles Burnett
1978
*****
Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep is a raw but quite beautiful drama. Reminiscent of the French Nouvelle Vague, it reminded me of The 400 Blows, particularly during the scenes whereby the kids are playing near the train tracks without a care in the world. I've heard various speculative ideas about the sub-text, my favourite one being that the black man skinning the White sheep represents race revenge witch technically makes it a revenge flick. I've also heard the idea that the title is a metaphor and that the poor black man is the sheep. I think both are nonsense. The magic of this film is its simple linear narrative, it weaves in an out peoples lives without a story but in doing so tells thousands of stories of the every day. Rarely has realism been better realised, it's handheld, black and white finish is perfect and shouldn't be passed off as amateur just because it was a student film. Charles Burnett is rightly regarded as a master film-maker of his generation, this is an example of American cinema at its best.