I was pleasantly surprised by this Sundance fav, especially
after my experience with Ballast. Beasts
of the Southern Wild is not only creative and rich in the local color we’re
used to finding in indies, but it’s also engaging. It drags in a few places like the hurricane
detention center, but for the most part, we’re interested throughout in who
Hushpuppy is and what is going to happen to her.
That said, the story isn’t the focus here. Beasts is mythopoesis, a world come to life
from the imagination of its heroine and rendered in affective imagery from a
life of poverty. From its first person
narration through the things we see, this film shows us the world as its
six-year-old lead understands and imagines it.
Her mind puts together vicious boars with legends of prehistoric beasts
to create world-destroying aurochs, and
then she embellishes the tale with fear that global warming will break the
beasts from their frozen stasis and unleash them on the world again. She sees a
boat made out of a pick-up truck bed and a shelter with spikes coming out the
roof to protect the survivors of the inundation. A party is a blaze of color and fireworks,
and when Hushpuppy decides she has to see her mother, she swims out to sea
since that’s where her father said that her mother had gone. There’s all the magical realism of Garcia
Marquez here, interpreted effectively into film.
And as in Marquez, the reality that underlies the magic is not happy. Hushpuppy lives in intimacy with
the physicality of a hard life -- its
dirt, its gore, its heartbeat. Her father is dying, her community is being destroyed, and she’s in desperate need
of her mother. Although far too young to
deal with such terrible conditions, Hushpuppy persists until she finds her mother,
confirmed by the legend-fulfilling act of frying alligator, and comes to the
painful realization that the woman can never fulfill the maternal role Hushpuppy
has wanted for her. With this wisdom,
Hushpuppy returns to her village, faces down the vicious aurochs, gives succor
to her dying father, and leads the villagers on to what is probably another
promised land. Beasts is the mythopoeic
creation of a new myth, perhaps one that’s real or perhaps one that’s
imagined. That doesn’t matter to a
six-year-old.
Beasts of the Southern Wild has flaws of pacing, acting and
script, but it is powerful portrayal of a young girl’s imaginative mind making
sense of her world and overcoming the obstacles she encounters. That portrayal alone makes this one of the
more interesting films of the year.
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