A Mirror Floating in Water

Killer of Sheep - It is a miraculous thing that a film like this was made. Not because it is some epic adventure no. But because it possesses the power and the vision of some of the greatest films of all time, and yet it was made on such a minuature budget with no professional actors and was considered a lost film for decades.

Thanks to the grace of Steven Soldbeirg, this film was rediscovered and re-released, thirty years after it's original release in 1977. Upon the films second chance, critics exploded. It was universally acknowledged as a masterpiece and its director Charles Burnett was immedietly hailed as one of the American masters. Almost right after its release, it was submitted into the National Film Preservation Regestry, a privlidge that only a few American films have shared. This film is proof that independent cinema can create gems, and that you hardly need anything to make a monumental film.

Set in urban Los Angeles through long hot summer days, we are given a series of vignettes concerning the everyday encounters of urban life for African-Americans. The films protaganist, Stan, is an emotionally detached working man who earns the little money he gets by working as a slaughterer at a sheep processing plant (hence the name).

This film is just teeming with life. With little scraps and bits of everyday life, we are able to intigrate a glorious whole of what it is to live in America. This film is neither upbeat or downbeat. It possesses no plot, it has minor character development, and wanders about the urban neighborhoods, with Stan being our guide.

There are moments of despair, confusion, joy, play. Hardly any scene has any deliberate connection to another, but in the end, we are do not feel that we have seen some kind of pretenscious fragmentated mess, but rather a beautiful mosiac of the human experience.
10/10