Originally posted to the DMI Review on 5/27/13
Little Budget, Big Movie
Beasts of the Southern Wild, one of the smaller films nominated for Best Picture a few months ago against Lincoln and Argo, is a film that is all about little things becoming big. Maybe not thematically, as it tells the story of a young girl and her father surviving in an disenfranchised post-hurricane part of the South (a section of Louisiana, I assume), but everything surrounding this film seems much larger even when standing next to the standard Hollywood blockbuster. First and foremost, the film was made for very little, just under $2 million (less than a fiftieth of the recent Great Gatsby's budget), stars actors who were not Screen Actors Guild members during filming, and went from being the small Sundance Film Festival hit that it was to the Oscar contender it became by the time the cast and crew were welcomed to the Dolby Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. What's most striking to me as a viewer is how a film made on such a small scale could feel so big and fantastical, as it deals with locations and characters that are just as beautiful and compelling as those that can come with a larger budget.
Of all the things that work about this film, the one essential element has to be Quvenzhané Wallis' Hushpuppy, the little girl who has an apparently boundless internal strength as she and her father (a similarly strong-willed Dwight Henry) weather storms and illness as their story unfolds. Wallis carries the film, a difficult task for any child actor, but I believe she was only six years old when she played Hushpuppy, and her age combined with her lack of experience astounds me when I think about how well she commanded the screen. Henry proves to be quite the force of nature despite his own inexperience, something that makes Wallis performance even better given this man's ability, because his angry but loving character is dealt such a terrible hand (not only a single parent, but one who we quickly learn is sick) in this film that he on occasion blows up on his daughter, only to gather his senses and teach her to be the strong-willed girl the audience sees in her.
Wallis and Henry together make this a tangible and relatable world, and what a wold it is that they inhabit. The Bathtub is the name of this region, an area we can only infer was abandoned after Hurricane Katrina, but its residents preferred to remain hidden there rather than join the rest of society on the other side of the levee. Hushpuppy and her father motor around in their makeshift boat (pictured above), catching fish and shellfish, and hanging out with the local children and adults who similarly enjoy this laid back life off the grid. The fact that we buy this moderate level of fantasy allows us to accept the existence of the ancient Auroch creatures (something Hushpuppy tells us about) that used to roam the earth. I never once questioned the world the film created, meaning that in doing so it was quite a success. However, the one thing that did distract me during the film was not that The Bathtub was real, but how it came about. How/Why/When was it abandoned? By who? What exactly makes life on the other side so bad?* These are questions of logic that pop up in your head when you've been watching too much Star Trek, so it's truly nothing to worry about when approaching this film, but I will caution you that if you do not buy the premise, you'll likely not enjoy the film. The performances carry it pretty far, but this swirled world of fantasy and reality is a necessary element to take in to fully embrace the movie.
Beasts of the Southern Wild transported me and showed me something I haven't quite seen before in a film. It's unique but not perfect, leaving perhaps a few more details than this reviewer would like up in the air, but nevertheless charming and moving me along the way. This film seems to have been a labor of love for its co-writer/director, Benh Zeitlin, taking a distinctive story from a small one-act play (by the film's other co-writer, Lucy Alibar) and making something that will not soon be forgotten. 8/10
*If this was meant to be New Orleans, how much of the more down-trodden areas were engulfed by the water?