I took one look
at the trailer for this one and said to myself “Hah. Terrance Malik fan.” This,
to be fair, is what most reviewers of the film seem to have thought when
watching Beasts of the Southern Wild. But don’t get me wrong, this is not a bad
thing. In fact it’s one of the things that pushed me to watching this film. Beasts
of the Southern Wild is a wonderfully surreal and – dare I say it - slightly
steampunk fairy tale taking place right in the middle of the modern world.
Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane
Wallis) is a six year old girl living in a southern bayou called Bathtub with
her father Wink (Dwight Henry). Hers is a rather unconventional life, she goes
to school and is taught by Miss Bathsheba who uses her tattoos to tell the
children about aurochs and warns them about the melting ice caps. Six year old Hushpuppy
has a “house” of her own close to her father’s where she lives with her own
things and what remains of her mother’s stuff – her mother “swam away” when
Hushpuppy was born – and goes over to her father’s house to eat. So there she
lives, in an unconventional world bolstered by her very vivid imagination. But
when disaster strikes in the shape of Wink’s failing health and the great flood
(Hurricane Katrina), Hushpuppy’s disorganised but happy world comes crashing
down. To survive (mentally and in fact physically) Hushpuppy has to grow up
very, very quickly indeed.
This is
wonderful lyrical story of a completely alternative way of interpreting the
world. The perspective of a child, a child who has not been given the hard and
fast rules the rest of society has adapted as “the right way” to do things. Do
you remember those days? It was quite a long time ago for most of us, so most
of us forget pretty quickly, but there was a time when you believed in things
that you know think was “childish nonsense”. It could be the tooth fairy, it
could be , like me, that when you got into an elevator the elevator was static
and the building moved around it (I’ve said this before, I was rather a strange
child). Director Benh Zeitlin does this by creating a completely alternative
universe in the bayou. The people who live there do not have nearly as many
possessions as the folks on the other side of the levee but they have one thing
money cannot buy – community. Hushpuppy’s family is not limited to her father, it
is the whole community, all her neighbours. The alternative lifestyle is
reinforced by the slightly Steampunk looking surroundings; the ramshackle huts
made out of disparate construction materials cobbled together, farm animals
running practically wild… It’s as close to living in a magical land a person
can get to in our modern times… It is fascinating to see, through the eyes of a
child, how this perspective copes when the harsh realities of disease and
destruction come crashing into this world. Be it Wink’s refusal to come to
terms with his illness (we are never told exactly what but it is some kind of
blood disorder) or the community coping with the devastating aftermath of the
hurricane, it is not just a matter of physical survival; it is a matter of
whether the happiness and philosophy of the community will survive. It is easy
to put bitterness and hopelessness instead of courage and a sense of
togetherness. Even more important is how little Hushpuppy is going to cope with
this transition because in all probability it will colour her approach to life
for the rest of her days.
For her
performance in this film young actress Quvenzhane Wallis deserves nothing short
of a standing ovation. This film is her first role as an actress and we have
since seen her in films such as 12 years a Slave. Facially and vocally she ably
conveys a very complex set of emotions and thoughts that some adult actors may
well have struggled with. Dwight Henry is also a strong performer as her father
Wink, who obstinately raises his daughter his own way, with an obstinacy and
passion that borders on the violent.
The one
thing I feel didn’t quite fit into the film are, sadly, the aurochs. They have
been compared to the dinosaurs in Terrance Malik’s Tree of Life, and who knows,
that may well be the source of their inspiration. They are, basically physical
representations (I say physical but needless to say the only exist in
Hushpuppy’s mind) of her fears, the difficulties the future will bring and the
uncertainty. Although the end sequence with them is designed to bring a rise of
emotion in us, to me it felt forced. The same emotion could equally be conveyed
(and I personally thought it was) during (SPOILER ALERT) Wink’s funeral, right
at the end of the film. I think they felt a little clumsy in what was otherwise
a very emotional and delicate film.
Beasts of
the Southern Wild is a real experience to watch. The silences and surrealism is
not for everyone but if you just look past the surface of these it’s a truly beautiful
and complex film. Definitely one not to miss.
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