where the wild things play

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.