Killer Of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977): USA

Reviewed by Kevin Tran

Killer Of Sheep is one film’s most well kept secret. The film was originally released in 1977 as Charles Burnett’s thesis film while attending UCLA and has not garnered much attention since then, as there has not been a whole lot being written about the importance of Charles Burnett or Killer Of Sheep within film history. Even despite being recently revived in 2007 being limitedly (very, very limitedly) shown in a few major cities and critically acclaimed by almost every scholarly film reviewer, the film still seems to fall far under the radar. However, Killer Of Sheep is a wonderfully beautiful look at urban decay and lower-class hardship, but the film is also lyrically poetic in its black and white (and gray, especially gray) depiction of humanity.

The film centers around a family living in Watts, a run downed urban ghetto of Los Angeles in 70s. The head of household is Stan, a poor slaughterhouse worker who feels dissatisfied in his life, he cannot relate to anyone not even his beautiful adoring wife. Stan works long tiring days at the slaughterhouse and at home he tirelessly fixes sinks and retiles the floor. All while his daughter lessons to records on the floor; his son plays with neighborhood kids, all of these mundane scenarios blend together and make the whole of the entire film.

Depicting the routine, everyday world is probably the hardest thing to do in a film, but Burnett poetically finds a way to piece together using an evocative soundtrack and well deliberate cuts. The film falls out of the conventions of blaxploitation films of the 1970s and even the African American films being created today by Tyler Perry. Never before has a film analyze the African American culture without the use of tiring stereotypes but instead of lyrical, sensual images that translate and reflects beautifully with Stan’s situation and story.

Killer of Sheep is an art film of an extremely meditative pace. The film was made out of a budget of only $10,000 and has Italian Neorealist qualities to it. Burnett’s film is the epitome of the American Independent movie, probably the first and the greatest. The film doesn’t tell more or less about the family but documenting them at their more candid. Crime seems to be evident everywhere but is displayed in an everyday truth instead of dramatically. Killer of Sheep is simply about a husband and a wife just trying to get by, working hard, raising their aloof children as best they can in a world that they didn’t ask for but is all they are given to work with.