Oscar nominee number six
is Benh Zeitlin’s wonderfully weird film, Beasts
of the Southern Wild, which stars the oh-so-talented and gorgeous Quvenzhané Wallis (Kwuh-van-ja-nay, but her friends
just call her Q!), the youngest person ever nominated for an Academy Award in
the Lead Actress category. This is a very different kind of film. Ask anyone
who’s seen it and I’m willing to bet they’ll struggle to tell you what it’s
about. Effectively you have one little girl on one big adventure to save her
hometown, a collection of shacks housing a ragtag community of people known as ‘The Bathtub’,
from a destructive storm. But it’s about so much more; family, childhood, home,
poverty, global warming, alcohol abuse, consumerism and where we belong in the
big ol’ world. And all of this is wrapped up in a realistic
fantasy that will shoot you off to a different planet for a couple of hours and
send you on a magical journey with this ragamuffin child.
rating: ★★★1/2
This film is 100% unique and I’ll admit I went into a bit of a trance
watching it. It was so strange and confronting at times that I even felt a bit
uncomfortable in the beginning, which is very similar to the way I felt
watching the movie version of Where the
Wild Things Are, and it is the only movie I can liken to Beasts. Initially, I was confused. I
didn’t really know what I was meant to be taking away from the film—what the meaning
was—and I always find that highly disconcerting when I’m watching a movie. But
eventually I settled down and just started going with the flow, the only thing
you can do when you come across a movie like this. And when you let it take you
for a ride, that’s when you start to understand. I think Quvenzhané’s character,
Hushpuppy, best sums it up when she says:
“When it all goes quiet behind my eyes, I see everything that made me,
flying around in invisible pieces. I see that I’m a little piece of a big, big
universe”.
The movie is quite beautiful to watch and is filmed in some amazing
locations. The hand-held camera effect and this kind of soft image made it all
the more entrancing, but no aspect of the film was more mesmerising than Quvenzhané
herself who, in my personal opinion, beat out all the other adult actors up for
Female Lead. I really don’t understand how someone so tiny can have such huge
acting chops! She made the movie for me and I can credit at least 3 of those
stars to her alone. The direction by Benh Zeitlin was another success, and
while the movie wasn’t exactly packed with dialogue, much of what was said
captured that innocent wisdom of childhood. It’s arty and bizarre and not to
everyone’s taste, but whether you like it or not, you have to admit, Beasts of the Southern Wild is pretty
extraordinary.
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