I adored Beasts of the Southern Wild. What can I say? I can't help myself when a movie has a main character with a name like "Hushpuppy." Here's what you need to know about her: she makes Crayola-crafted "cave drawings" on cardboard boxes to record her story, runs around in undies and rain boots, and listens to animals like a forest fairy-- yes, she's just as down-home and irresistible as her namesake don't-tell-Weight-Watchers splurge food. Allow me to orient you: Hushpuppy is a tough-as-nails, cute-as-hell 6-year-old whose natural habitat is the "Bathtub," a swampy, backwoods community that exists on the wrong side of the New Orleans levee. This is a place that time has forgotten because it stubbornly broke off from the rest of the world to create its own pace of life, culture, lifestyle, and reality. Hushpuppy lives here with her father, a troubled, passionate, and complicated figure who insists that his wild pup of a daughter become self-sufficient to survive in an increasingly unpredictable and hazardous world. But the film's world is not our world-- the Bathtub is separated from us by myth, mystery, and, as it happens, a levee. The mythical qualities of the film-- giant beasts that race across the landscape, Hushpuppy's hero cycle, the journey to the mysterious light-- make it all the more mesmerizing. It's a smart film, too, tackling big themes (disaster, death, the natural world in disarray) with subtlety and grace.
But the movie itself is just as scrappy as its protagonist. Director Benh Zeitlin-- the 30-year-old wunderkind who found his way onto my shortlist for the most marriageable geniuses in Hollywood-- and his production team made the film on a shoestring budget in Louisiana. The movie was a sleepy summer "hit" (well, relatively) that, with the same stubborn waywardness of the Bathtub, defied Oscar odds and beat out bigger-name movies with established directors, classically-trained actors, fine-combed scripts, and well-timed marketing campaigns to garner four Academy Award nominations. Of these nominations, perhaps the most exciting is 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis's Best Actress nod. She played Hushpuppy with a fierceness, fearlessness, and effortless vulnerability that took my breath away, and she has become the youngest gal EVER to be nominated for Best Actress (sorry, Keisha Castle-Hughes!). Quvenzhané's (what a badass name!!) talent in this film is matched only by her off-the-charts cute index.
Now, this movie has plenty of admirers, including Stephen Colbert, MObama, and the
The uninspired reviewer will call Beasts of the Southern Wild a coming-of-age film, or a survival tale, or a portrait of a disappearing world. But to pigeonhole this film is to reduce its power, snuff its sparkle, and tether it to the ground when all it wants to do is shoot into the sky and explode with all the awe and majesty of a thousand bursting fireworks. Put simply, Beasts of the Southern Wild is a magical movie. It is that rare film that manages to be joyous and tragic, fantastical and earthy, unreal and authentic.
Oh, and a final word: watch with caution. I guarantee it'll sweep you off your feet.
No comments:
Post a Comment