Review #542: 'Beasts of the Southern Wild' (2012)

"The entire universe depends on everything fitting together. If you can fix the broken bit, everything can go back." This simplistic but profound statement forms the imaginative basis of the world and ecology, as interpreted by six year old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis). Living on the outskirts of civilisation, on the wet plains of the Louisiana Delta, in a ramshackle community named the Bathtub, the residents are fully aware of the approaching dangers of nature. Through the teachings of the local shaman-like woman, Miss Bathsheba (Gina Montana), the Bathtub's children are taught of the power of nature. As she tells Hushpuppy and her peers, "The fabric of the universe will tear", as she describes the changing world, where the polar icecaps will melt, and their community will be flooded, and prehistoric beasts (the Aurochs) will be defrosted and set free. Hushpuppy takes these mythological tales literally.

Living in parallel to the "civilised" world, their world is divided by the levees (the same levees that failed New Orleans in the tragedy of 2005, and the allegorical nature of the film reflects this modern apocalypse). In the opening Hushpuppy and her father, Wink (Dwight Henry), travel down the river next to the levee, looking at the industrialised world of chimneys and smoke, and ponders on the beauty they live in, whilst reproaching the ugliness of, what they call "the dry side". When Hushpuppy follows her father across a field in an early scene, the audience knows that Wink must be a sick man, she asks him why he is wearing a dress and a bracelet - inevitably her narrow image of the sterile world, is stunted, as Wink wears a hospital gown and wrist-tag - but with her translation of the world, the little parts of the universe are inextricably linked. After an argument with her father, Hushpuppy punches him in the chest, as he falls to the ground the signs of an approaching storm rupture in the sky. She believes she has broken this little part of the universe, bringing catastrophe with it.

As the fantasy elements of Hushpuppy's world-view entwines itself within the very real aspects of the narrative, we see her as a force of nature, and one who has to learn the importance of strength, love, and responsibility. And like the forceful, determined character, Wallis (only 6 herself when filming) gives an incredibly determined and powerful performance, almost as if she were born to inhabit this very character. With a beautifully toned down screenplay by Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar (based on her one-act play, 'Juicy and Delicious'), Zeitlin's direction (his debut feature in fact), displays absolute understanding of the central ideas, and balances (like Hushpuppy balances nature) the very harsh realities of life outside of civilisation, with the pure, and astounding fantasy of a six-year-old girl.

The soundtrack by director Zeitlin and Dan Romer mixes the emotional components with the more folksy, geographically specific music of New Orleans jazz, and fits perfectly within the context of the story. In the last ten minutes or so, the confluence of image, context and music, creates a rare biological experience where the goosebumps run up the back, providing a cooling shiver up the spine. Beasts of the Southern Wild is a profoundly beautiful and touching experience, and as Hushpuppy says on a few occasions, that when she dies the scientists of the future will know. We certainly know by the end, that there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in the bathtub.


Directed by: Benh Zeitlin
Starring: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Marc Ivamy