150 Word Review: 'Killer of Sheep' (1978)
City of angels
Little boys leap across roofs. Men butcher sheep. A man and a wife slow dance in the shadows, her desire hushed by his despair. Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep is a collection of moments that capture the lives of a desperately poor Black family and their community in 1970s Watts, Los Angeles. He wrote, directed, and edited this black-and-white indie drama, which is emotionally distant, at times, and then, without warning, unbearably intimate. Burnett's camera is ruthless and compassionate.
Henry G. Sanders carves himself open onscreen as Stan, a father who returns from his job at a slaughterhouse exhausted and hopeless. He's a good man who refuses the easy way out, but honest schemes fail. His friends aren't much better off than he is. Their dreams fester, too. But Stan is loved, and that makes his struggle harder. The neighborhood is a ruin, and the sun shines on the rubble.