"Beasts of the Southern Wild" : The Unpretentious Cycle of Life

After wanting to watch this film for a while, I finally had the chance yesterday, and my first and most compressed thought about the film is that it is likely to become the little indie film that crosses over to a large audience because of its charm and warmth. Its difficult to categorize the film, in a funny way I would say it is a post-apocalyptic southern fantasy drama film. "The Bathtub" is a fictional version of a wrecked New Orleans, it is a community of people who didn't want to be rescued and moved to a refuge. Among these people there is a little girl who goes by the name of Hushpuppy and her dad Wink. These are the two main characters that drive the "boat" for the film.

 In "The Bathtub" life is full of the simple pleasures,  survival lessons and an acceptance for an unpretentious and unstoppable cycle of life. As Hushpuppy mentions many times every piece in the universe needs to be in place for everything to work. The film never ever wallows on the hardships, or is pitiful or patronizing of its characters, it shows them raw and wild, but always with conviction to survive and never be tied down. The people in "The Bathtub" called the rest of us "The Dry World", this is an alien place where we have all these conventions and false materialistic needs that don't let us be truly free. In fact I truly believe the film is about the "beasts" we all are, how we are part of something bigger, but that at core we are animals in need to survive and who must be free and need simple things to be happy. All these lessons are conveyed through the breakthrough performance by Quvenzhane Wallis as Hushpuppy. It is indeed marvelous to see such a complex performance delivered with such ease by a child actor, she is lovable and fierce, but also insecure as a girl her age would be. Wallis is the heart of the film, and a heart that really makes this indie film into a gem of cinema.

 Forget about the special effects, that is just a glossy side dish to the acting. Also impeccable is Dwight Henry as Wink (Hushpuppy's father), the character is an ill alcoholic who still holds on to his dignity and strength and refuses to be tamed by the power of conventional society. He transmits this to Hushpuppy forming a bond that is at heart wild and indomitable. A crucial moment in the film is when we see Hushpuppy in a dress and Wink in a wheelchair (no spoiler here) , that is when we realize their nature and how they feel like beasts on a cage.This and many other subtle touches really express the love for life and freedom, this fearless acknowledgement of death. Tears are held back in this world, but when tears flow they are powerful, more than in many other films that try to tell you "now you cry", in "Beasts" it comes naturally.

On more technical notes, the film is beautiful, it has a feel of realism that is hard to believe since it does involve fantasy, but there is also pure magic that I'm sure came from the crew and the director Benh Zeitlin, and the good time they sure had making it. If you love Louisiana, or the South, or Movies, or Fantasy, or Life in general this is a must watch. Calling it early, but I wouldn't be surprise to hear Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress for Wallis, and Best Supporting Actor for Henry. Just my very early predictions, in the meantime if you haven't yet, do go see this. Grade A+