Beasts of the Southern Wild review

“Once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in The Bathtub"


Beasts of the Southern Wild is a physically dismantling film. It is a film that could go on forever because it’s a world you just want to be enveloped in. It’s a world of wonder, poetry and magic. It tells the story of Hushpuppy, Quvenzhané Wallis in the best child performance since Hunter Carson in Paris, Texas, and her father, Wink, played by baker Dwight Henry, and their life in the Bathtub, a fantastical community built out of poverty, circumstance and humanity. It is said that the icecaps are melting and a great storm is coming bringing with it long-frozen, prehistoric beasts. 

'gunna need a bigger boat

The first film from Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wilds is a fable about facing death and finding ones value in life. It’s apocalyptic, political, heart-breaking. It’s Malick-esque in the best possible way: it’s earthy, biblical, poetic and honest. It’s human and commands emotional engagement while having lashings of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Fantasy-realism some may call it; it straddles the divide between socio-political exploration and high fantasy. This uncanny quality is captured by presenting a relevant narrative through the eyes and mind of Hushpuppy. The film owes a debt to the aforementioned Where the Wild Things Are, certainly, but the films closest comparison would be to Victor Erice’s masterpiece The Spirit of the Beehive in its child’s-eye-view on a world and of the fabric of human nature.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is a masterstroke in acting, directing, sound direction and mise-en-scene but to break the film down in to its basic components seems trivial when it really is a product of the sum of its parts. And what a product it is. It’s pure cinema, an amalgamation of sound, vision and emotion. In these days where every film, no matter what it is, can find some way of slapping a load of five-stars and praise on its poster it’s easy to become jaded and cynical and to mistrust hype. But Benh Zeitlin’s film is another beast entirely, pardon the pun. No amount of plaudits and recommendations can really account for the genuine awe the film inspires. It’s not just something you appreciate, Beasts of the Southern Wild is something you feel.