Beasts of the southern wild review

Hushpuppy: In a million years, when kids go to school, they gonna know: Once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in The Bathtub. 

Director: Behn Zietlin
(2012)

Since an incredibly positive word of mouth had erupted earlier this year, I became especially excited to watch Beasts of the Southern Wild. Its story, setting and themes were something I simply had to see, making an immediate trip to the local arthouse cinema. 90 minutes later I left feeling incredibly deflated. Beasts isn’t a bad film, but it frequently shows glimpse of pure brilliance that Behn Zeitlin and his crew simply fail to capitalise upon.

After a phenomenal opening parade, we learn that the bayou community the Bathtub is likely to be flooded as the polar ice caps melt. Our main character is Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), a 6 year old girl who lives with her loving yet abusive father, Wink (Dwight Henry). What begins at a snappy pace soon runs out of steam though, and Beasts of the Southern Wild relies solely on its gorgeous location, dreamy voiceover and knockout performances from its leads.

 But what a knockout these performances are. Quvenzhané Wallis was amazingly only 6 years old during filming, yet she washes over the film with her wide eyed brilliance, more so than any storm could ever hope to achieve. The same can be said for her onscreen father Wink (Dwight Henry) also an amateur actor, found by Zeitlin due to his crew frequenting Henry’s bakery. He gives a very stark, real character, harbouring great love for hushpuppy but supplying it with a heavy dose of brutality. Most notably, he makes her live alone, his own way of morphing her into a self sufficient being in the event that he’s no longer around. Something that is bound to happen after he returns wearing hospital apparel, much to Hushpuppy's amusement. While Hushpuppy tries to make sense of the world that rages on around her, prehistoric monsters called Aurochs have awoken from the melted ice, and are stampeding towards the Bathtub. While a very interesting idea, these titular beasts are a wasted opportunity. After being built up throughout the film, Hushpuppy's encounter with them squanders of one of Beasts more magical aspects. If they weren’t in the film, events would be exactly the same.

Beasts is yet another film that suffers from some needlessly shaky camerawork. While it does allow us to become more intimate with Hushpuppy and her perception of the world, it also becomes immensely annoying. When the film’s opening establishing shot is the equivalent of a plastic bag being blown around in the wind, something clearly isn’t right. It isn’t nausea inducing like say, The Hunger Games, but it’s far from perfect.

Despite being full of post Katrina imagery of homes flooded and retaken by nature, Beasts is not an allegory to that shocking storm of 2005. The residents of the bathtub could have abandoned their homes, but chose to stay and wait out the floods. It’s clear that they love where they live, an emotion that shines through strongest when aid workers from the other side of the divisional levee force them into care centres. This marks the worst 20 minutes of the film, gone is the beautiful yet ravaged countryside and instead we get to look at the sterile walls of a treatment centre. Its excruciating to bear and the lacklustre escape by the people of the bathtub is relieving.

After a good hour of nothingness in the bathtub and treatment centre, Hushpuppy decides to search for her mother. There’s no build-up to this quest; her and her friends just jump into the sea and swim outwards as far as they can, aiming for the light that sparkles in the distance. It’s doesn’t mesh with the rest of the narrative, but at this point any event that drives the plot forward is relieving. The next scene is wonderful however, and is what the film should have been like for the entirety of its running time. It’s emotional, taught, beautiful and mystical, coupled with amazing music and camerawork.

In all honesty, I'm disappointed with Beasts of the Southern Wild. Failing to deliver little over sublime acting and incredible beauty, it left me with a rather bitter taste in my mouth. At its best it’s a good film, emulating Malick while retaining its own sense of identity. At its worst it glorifies poverty with its limp story and dead in the water plot. While others witnessed a film equivalent of a force of nature, all I saw was the calm before the storm.

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