Beasts of the
Southern Wild
(USA, 93 min.)
Dir. Benh Zeitlin, Writ. Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin
Starring: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry, Gina Montana, Levy
Easterly.
There’s a storm a-brewin’ and it’s coming to the theatre
with the force of a hurricane. Beasts of
the Southern Wild is, quite simply, unlike any film I’ve seen before. It’s
the story of a young six-year-old girl named Hushpuppy (played by Quvenzhané
Wallis) who lives with her father, Wink (Dwight Henry), in some place that
looks like a bayou in the deep American South. Hushpuppy and her daddy are a
few hundred miles south of Winter’s Bone
in some magical land called The Bathtub. As Hushpuppy explains in her prophetic
narration, The Bathtub is a place cast off by the rest of society. It’s a bit
like the Island of Misfit Toys, but filled with real people. Perched on the
other side of an ominous levee, The Bathtub will soon be flooded be an
impending storm and, as the elders of The Bathtub explain, kids like Hushpuppy
are gonna need to adapt to survive once the rivers rise up.
When the storm hits The Bathtub, Hushpuppy, Wink, and their
surviving friends hold strong, remain in their waterlogged community, and live
off the land and sea as nature taught them. However, the fish in the sea can
only last so long because everything in the universe is connected and the
problems on the other side of the levee prevent the storm from draining in its
full cycle.
Hushpuppy’s tale of survival is by all regards
heartbreaking. The violent storm is enough trouble for one young child, but she
must also bear a turbulent alcoholic father who neglects his daughter despite
his obvious love and concern for her. Wink’s battle with the bottle relates to
the absence of Hushpuppy’s mother: a woman whom Wink said was so hot that water
boiled when she entered the kitchen, Hushpuppy’s momma left just after the
child was born. All that remains of her are a Michael Jordan jersey with the
number 23 and a face etched on the wall of Hushpuppy’s cabin. Hushpuppy is an
imaginative anthropologist and is keen to ensure that all the residents of The
Bathtub, herself included, will leave their mark on the world and not be forgotten.
Hushpuppy’s story is simply unforgettable with Quvenzhané
Wallis’s revelatory performance and commanding lead. Her performance as the
stoic young soldier is sure to win the hearts of all moviegoers. As a reviewer
who is often unnecessarily harsh on child actors (see Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close or Safe for examples), I must say that Wallis’s work proves that a
young performer can indeed carry a film. This is a surprisingly dynamic and
deeply moving performance for such a young performer. Wallis has the heart and
spunk of a six-year-old, but as much range and force as the adult who has lived
through so many more seasons of rain. (Dwight Henry is every bit as powerful
and excellent as Wink.) While one might argue that an actress as young as Miss Wallis
may not fully comprehend the emotional range in which her character finds
herself and may therefore simply be mimicking the advice of her director, her
performance has an undeniable naturalness and sense of spontaneity that makes
the emotional heft of her character feel genuine. Even if the actress does not
entirely fathom the full depth of the story (there is no proof that she does
not, though), one must ask if Hushpuppy understands the full picture. How much
of Beasts of the Southern Wild is
past and how much is present? How much of Hushpuppy’s voiceover is posed in retrospect?
The sense of magical realism that defines the film makes much of the action
feel like mere child’s play that helps Hushpuppy survive the poverty of the
situation and if Wallis is simply enjoying the moment before the camera as a
child playing make believe, she finds a necessary core to her role that makes
the film work. On the other hand, if she is indeed simply mimicking direction,
she gets the job done perfectly. This girl is fierce.
The sense of child’s play in Beasts of the Southern Wild is what really sets it apart from the
other animals at the movies this summer. Told in an imaginative form, scope,
and style, Beasts of the Southern Wild
is a truly cinematic event. It’s also a potent allegory of the state of the
world, with the sodden images of the bayou bearing a too much resemblance to
recent disasters to go unnoticed. The film, directed and co-written by Benh
Zeitlin, makes a jarring image of the interconnectedness of the world and shows
how the impending storm in one place has roots in another. A bit like the
butterfly effect, Beasts of the Southern
Wild realizes this idea in a startling motif with some magnificent beasts
that return to The Bathtub after having been gone for ages. The beasts,
presumably extinct as Hushpuppy’s teacher Miss Bathsheeba tells the children of
The Bathtub, have been lying dormant in the ice of the South Pole and break
free with the winds that bring the storm.
What exactly are the beasts that traverse the lands in this
majestic film? They’re an arresting flock of creatures. Viewed mostly in odd
fragmentary shots before Zeitlin stages them as a large brooding mass migrating
towards The Bathtub, the beasts are perhaps the most elusive yet most
intriguing element of Beasts of the
Southern Wild. The animals at times look like strong beautiful stallions,
like Black Beauty herself but with the quills of a large hedgehog. At other
moments, though, the beasts resemble giant pigs or wild boars. The animals seem
to change as they escape the ice shelves of the South Pole and float to The
Bathtub in the great thaw of global warming. Are these imposing
shaping-shifting creatures a foil for the human race or are they merely a
reflection of us?
There’s something about the tone, look, and energy of life
in The Bathtub that I can’t quite put my finger on, but am sure is responsible
for much of the impact. Adapted from the play Juicy and Delicious by co-screenwriter Lucy Alibar, Beasts of the Southern Wild is a bit too
sparse and lifelike to be a fantasy, but it is far too imaginative to be
considered something else. Perhaps it’s the realism and the sense that The
Bathtub is a real place that makes the film so jarring. Unlike the apocalypse
in, say, Margaret Atwood’s novel The Year
of the Flood, Beasts of the Southern
Wild takes place in the present rather than in the distant future. Shot on
a budget of less than two million dollars, Beasts
doesn’t have the money for elaborate sets and radical effects to transform
locations into some far off place. This drama takes place in the here and now,
using real people and places to tell a story of a community that was left
stranded.
Beasts of the Southern
Wild is sure to leave the audience pondering such questions long after the
credits roll. Court 13, the excellent team of collaborators behind the film
(credited as a whole before director Benh Zeitlin), delivers an evocative piece
of filmmaking that is best summarized as “an experience” and might best be
appreciated in retrospect after much discussion. For all its saturated bleakness,
Beasts of the Southern Wild is, above
all, a celebratory film. It’s a monumental work worth celebrating.
Rating: ★★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Beasts of the Southern Wild plays in Ottawa at The Bytowne until
August 5 and at Mayfair Orleans beginning August 10.
*Photos courtesy eOne Films.
