Black Sheep (II) (2018) User Reviews

A brutal testimonial

[nancyldraper · 8/10 · 12 March 2019]

Startling narrative of a young man just wanting to fit in. A frank, brutal testimonial. Important to hear and understand. Nominated for an Oscar, I give this Documentary Short an 8 (important) out of 10. {Documentary}

A Powerful 26 Minutes of Film

[daveguth-1 · 8/10 · 15 February 2019]

This film presents a stunningly powerful comment on what it's like to be a person of a different race, and what that does to a child's need to fit in with others. If you have a heart, a conscience, or an inkling of understanding of how tough it is to be a kid in this world, you will be depressed watching this film. It simply hurts to watch it.

But it needs to be watched. We must be reminded of what it's like to be a black person in a white world, what it's like for a child who feels compelled to do anything to be accepted, and what's it like to live with a father who is simply unable to solve the chaos in your life.

As another reviewer stated, this documentary does have several reenactments, and that's a bit controversial for the documentary "purists." But whether you think that somehow disqualifies the film from the Oscars (or whatever) really misses the point. The reenactments bring the narrator's harrowing story even more clearly to life. For example, it's one thing to hear someone describe being called the n-word, it's another to see the face and hear the words from a disgusting little racist brat.

I strongly recommend this film.

Why acceptance is stronger than morality

[formidible-441-172674 · 7/10 · 22 March 2019]

A short but engaging documentary centred on one man which shows that you can't always escape from the issues you face in life by just moving house - in this case from racism and violence. Through a series of edited interviews and acted sequences the film shows how one man deals with his perceived lack of love and acceptance from his father, dealing with the emotions surrounding a notorious murder, and the extreme racism and violence he encounters in his everyday life. Instead of challenging his oppressors he decides instead to assimilate and behave like them in order to find the acceptance he so desperately seeks.

a story. too familiar

[Kirpianuscus · 14 September 2019]

It is not the testimony who you expect. It is not the story with moralistic end. It represents only a honest and not comfortable portrait of racism, care of a mother and the price, the real price of acceptance. And, more important, it is not the story of a black child told at older age but a portrait of early years in which the new home, after a tragedy near your family or the hostility of new neighbours is painful familiar for many. A not easy film, using, for a clear and direct message, the sacrifice of artistic virtues of documentary. The story of Cornelius Walker.

Sacrifices all artistic value for a contemporarily relevant story subject

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 27 January 2019]

"Black Sheep" is a British 27-minute documentary short film from 2018 directed by Ed Perkins and this is also an Oscar nominee this year. I have several problems with that already. First of all I am struggling with the word "documentary" in this context. The film includes messily put-together and edited interviews as well as poorly reenacted scenes. The interview parts are all with one person only, namely Cornelius Walker. This is his story. Or at least we are supposed to believe so. The way he presents it honestly it felt really scripted to me, also with his non-verbal language. There is nothing left to coincidence in this movie at all, but yeah that must not mean it is not all true admittedly. I don't know. Probably only Walker knows the percentage of what actually happened the way he describes it in here. Now as for the film itself, very briefly summarized you could say this is the story of a young man/teenager who moves from London to a more rural area in England and what happens to him afterward. Lets start with London. There is a reference to the death of Damilola Taylor, of course it served them well here to include the death of a Black boy as the reason why Walker had to move places. This is also the only real reference to actual events that made the news and even that happened already 20 years ago and one thing that is not said is that while there are talks about racist motivations behind the murder, it also must be said that the offenders were career criminals active in bank robberies and lots of other stuff before that. Anyway, lets move on. Lets talk about Walker at his new home. There he says he runs into racist gangs that control the place and heavily beat him up. Of course they also re-enacted these violent scenes and show his former self with heavy injuries to shock the audience as much as possible. I will get to that later on. But you can sure say they are not taking the quietly or subtly convincing approach here and I don't like it at all, at least in this very case. More questions came to my mind. If these boys were really that racist, would they allow a Black fella into their middle? Only because he speaks like them and dresses like them and because his eyes are blue and his skin is a little bit lighter. Does that really make sense after they hated him so much that they heavily knocked him out. And there is talk that everybody was White and racist in this place. Now all of a sudden a group of Blacks appears at some point to show where the protagonist's priorities lie. Where did they come from? They seem to be 3 or 4 at least. Why did he not group with them. There is no talk about them regularly getting attacked by the racist White boys. So there were more than just a few incongruencies in this little movie. But completely aside from that, it lacks all the aspects I value in documentary filmmaking. It is boastful, shocking for the sake of it without offering any depth, tells a story about a man that in my opinion does not deserve to be put on screen. It is neither educational nor informative and that is a huge problem if you make a film that is at its very core about nothing but racism because the only effect it will have on people is create more hate and make the abyss between Blacks and Whites even bigger in a world where racism is especially in Europe really not that much of a problem anymore. Sure there are groups that still promote it, but these also exist when it comes to all other extremes. In my opinion this movie only creates more hatred and the veil of tolerance, equality and respect it wants to submit is very artificial and fake. I highly recommend to skip the watch here. In terms of production values, this could have been made by a group of film students without much experience. It does look amateurish at times like a better film student movie uploaded on Youtube. There is really no reason to see it. It teaches nothing and shame on the Academy for falling for it. Even more shocking to see this being considered by many the frontrunner for the win at this point probably. Huge thumbs-down from me and I am not hesitant to call this entire project a failure and I am really glad they did not take the full feature film route because at under 30 minutes it felt already painfully long to sit through. Highly not recommended.

A High-End Youtube Video

[unclesamsavage · 5/10 · 27 February 2019]

Black Sheep surely has heavy subject matter. It got lots of looks for an Academy Award for this reason. I enjoyed the personal story, as theatrically over the top as it was reenacted. It made all the events feel visceral and alive. It does not leave me without any questions, however. Was the death of Damilola the first in Peckham? Where was the dad working that moving to Essex seemed like a good idea? What were Cornelius' parents doing as he got involved with all this trouble and started looking and acting differently? I was taken by the sincerely human struggles of this movie, like the cycle of violence from racism and paternal abuse; the necessary feeling of belonging somewhere new. However, this movie attacks these conflicts in a seemingly scripted fashion, with very little else besides an interview and some poorly acted flashbacks. One of the only devices I found effective was the placement of the older Cornelius in these scenes from the past. I do not think this movie is a must-watch. The subject matter is very important, of course, but I did not feel as though the movie adds a whole lot to the conversation more than what most of Western society is already bombarded with in the media.