At a surface level, it is the reality of slavery today that makes this a movie so hard to digest.

Like Hotel Rwanda, it portrays a reality in our world today. At a surface level, it is the reality of slavery today that makes this a movie so hard to digest. While their proposed solution of the problem is flawed, and though they deal with this issue at a political and economic level, the reality of the problem is overwhelming.

There is a scene showing the re-education of the children once they have been captured. They are called ‘men’ and given guns and told that their guns earn them respect. They are put through an initiation process designed to kill the child and resurrect machines without feeling. It is an unsettling scene that speaks to what the education of the Hitler Youth must have been like in Nazi Germany.

Themes

One theme that emerges very quickly and is developed throughout the entire movie is the idea that an entire country is changed one life at a time. When the needs are staggering and the workers few, we are tempted to give up.