Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

"Faced with both her hot-tempered father's fading health and melting ice-caps that flood her ramshackle bayou community and unleash ancient aurochs, six-year-old Hushpuppy must learn the ways of courage and love." (The Internet Movie Database)



This is a quality Louisiana film that has been making alot of waves over the past couple of months. That being said, I don't know if it's Oscar material. Sundance, yes. I'll even grant it Best Picture at Oscars. As a friend of mine said, it has a certain magic quality to it. I don't hate it, but I don't love it, either. It's got the bayou mystique and a feel of a "southern fairy tale," but the story isn't solid enough to hold it together.

I do not think this film should get Best Director or Best Actress. The story and even style of it is too fragmented. The girl is adorable and it's hard to believe she was only 5 when they made the film; but she basically "acts" with a completely blank face most of the time. The last scene, she shows some impressive emotion, but until then, it's like staring at a brick wall. I almost felt like I was in the Kuleshov experiments--I look at her circumstances and then her blank face, and I juxtapose whatever emotion I think she's feeling into my experience of the scene.

It may be a film trying to tell an open-ended story as seen from the child's point of view. If so, it does a fair job. But it just leaves too many unanswered or unexplained things. I have seen other films that show life from a kids' point of view, how they understand or interpret the events happening around them. I don't think this one does such a great job. The film feels like it's unpolished. The director has definite talent, and the screenwriter should be commended for thinking originally. But I don't know if it deserves all of the accolades it is getting.

On another bright note, it's smashing fun to see areas that you know and are familiar with as locations in a movie. This was filmed partly in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana--my mother's home ground. The film does a great job of creating this mysterious and entirely distinct world that is colorful and easily felt throughout the film.

I will definitely recommend it to my filmie friends. It's a good stretch. But for most people, I think it's going to be short-lived and will eventually fade away into the black hole where most independent films wind up.

My rating: Seven out of ten stars (7/10)