Killer of Sheep

I completely understand why there are an abundance of people who found, and still find, Killer of Sheep to be confusing upon first watching it. When watching a movie, one would obviously expect there to be some semblance of a plot to follow, with characters that are relatively easily remembered, some sort of conflict, maybe a heart-warming ending. Killer of Sheep, however, rids itself of these traditional parts of film completely. Until I read up on the film roughly half-way through watching it, I did not fully comprehend the hyper-realistic nature of the film. I must have glazed over that description and did not think much of it.

The first scene in the film, with the father yelling at his son and the mother slapping him, sets the movie up in a way that makes it seem like any questions the viewer might have (such as who are these characters/what are their goals, etc.) might be cleared up, but, for me, about 40 minutes in I realized that the film was more of a series of events in the character's lives. I had to change my viewing of the film and allow myself to just sort of live with the characters and follow what was happening, without expecting any sort of grand climax at any point. Although the film was not super difficult to understand or follow at all, it took me a little while to get the hyper-realistic nature of the film - or rather, to let myself forget about anything I had watched previously and to just enjoy it and try to follow what was happening. There was obviously some main plot points in the film, like Stan's work-life affecting his home life, his friends trying to get him involved in their lifestyle, etc., but overall, the film was different from most others, and I can totally see why some would find it difficult to follow.