22 January 2013
Directed by: Benh Zeitlin
Starring: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly
What it’s about: A six-year-old girl navigates through troubles in her storm-ridden “Bathtub.”
Rated: PG-13 (for disaster scenes and trauma)
Runtime: 91 minutes
By Hanna Bernbaum, Staff Writer
Like the bayou in which it takes place, short film director Benh Zeitlin’s first full-length feature has been swamped with award recognition from independent film associations like Sundance and DHK. It has also received Oscar attention—and rightfully so—for making Southern folklore millennial and worthy of capturing your imagination for 91 minutes.
Enter “The Bathtub,” a backwoods community on the other side of the levee. Its washed-up residents isolate themselves from Gulf Coast civilization. Born out of this utopia of stilted junk houses is a tinkering and naïve six-year-old girl, Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis). In a series of hazy but dreamlike frames, we learn about the fire she started in her home that brought about her mother’s death. Hushpuppy is left only with her spitfire father, Wink (Dwight Henry). He means well, but his struggle with a soft temper nurtures a similarly boyish spirit in Hushpuppy, not to mention a wild afro. With the crescendo of a folky and triumphant original score during the opening sequence of a Fourth of July celebration, the progressive community, though not blood-related, becomes a giant family unit bound by the principle of survival. That is, until a giant storm hits and completely submerges the ramshackle structures, leaving missing links in the symbiosis of the Bathtub.
Among the survivors of the storm are Hushpuppy, Wink and their friend Jean Battiste (Levy Easterly). They paddle around in a boat fashioned out of old tailgates scouring the water for resources, and Hushpuppy participates in all of it.
Not only is the character of Hushpuppy a fresh and youthful interpretation of a heroine, but young actress Quvenzhané Wallis is new to the screen as well. In fact, all of the actors were not professionally trained or experienced prior to the production.
Former New Orleans baker Dwight Henry executes a passionate performance of Wink, especially commanding in the second half of the film as he yells, screams and punches his way through a battle with terminal illness. Once you find out he is not a professional actor, it suddenly makes sense why his acting is just so raw and visceral.
The father/daughter pairing (soon to be just daughter) is caught and put in a homeless shelter with other storm victims. Hushpuppy’s hair is braided and she dons a dress, but only for a moment until she helps Wink escape hospitalization. Upon returning to the Bathtub, the only thing Wink can physically do is lay down, but the less painful thing for him to do is die.
I would go as far to say that Beasts is a spiritual film. You would think that the Bathtub thrived because of the residents’ resourcefulness, but a large factor is the amount of heart that turned a pile of junkyard scraps into a town. The religious guide for Hushpuppy is an auroch, an ancient hog-like beast that eternally roams the earth. Although Hushpuppy puts on a tough face, the truly fierce auroch that has seen much violence is tamed by Hushpuppy’s innocence and unabashed authority.
Beasts is also a film of temperatures. Filmed in 16-milimeter, every glisten of the water’s changing surface is captured and felt like sunrays, and every bead of sweat on Wink’s face rolls like a Southern drawl. The steam that pipes from the cooking pot billows so that we also feel trapped and stuffed into the fire that tragically killed Hushpuppy’s mother. The storm mercilessly dents the tin can roofs and brings on shivers to think of the suffering both Hushpuppy and her father endure. The scene in which Hushpuppy bids farewell to Wink is so simple visually yet so complex to think about that crying is the most instinctive way to react. I want to believe that this story is real somewhere in this world. Maybe not in New Orleans, but in a place where twice my emotion is merely half of theirs.
Beasts of the Southern Wild is available now on DVD and Blu-ray.
10/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF7i2n5NXLo
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