Beasts of the Southern Wild by Benh Zeitlin

The first full-length feature by the young American Benh Zeitlin is rightfully entitled, Beasts of the Southern Wild. Filmed in the bayous of southern Louisiana, this intense film does in fact showcase a lot of beasts of the wild, including loads of pigs, birds, insects and fishes. This post-Katrina apocalyptic story is a cinematic Noah’s arch taking on board a handful of incorruptible humans who are the inhabitants of a swampy zone called Bathtub, which borders the delta of the Mississippi.

Despite living in abject squalor with homes made of piecemeal nature, rust and mortar, the community is intent in fighting for their lives and the little bit of nothing they call home from an impending storm. Their rejection of the “civilized“ world is further emblazoned by their pride, as these men, women and children wouldn’t live elsewhere for anything.

Opening up with an energetic joy and vibrating fanfare, Beasts of the Southern Wild is a voyage of initiation. Reminiscent of the Odyssey, it is both a magical and realistic fable of survival. The relationship between the father, Wink (Dwight Henry) and his six-year-old daughter Hushpuppy (the incredible and magnetic Quvenzhane Wallis) is about passing on how to survive.

As narrator, the little girl adds magic to the film; incessantly trying to pierce the great mystery of the heart of the beings she crosses. The story of Beasts of the Southern Wild is also narrated by a greater, more ancient voice; the stuff of legends. Indeed, Benh Zeitlin weaves into his story scenes of melting glaciers and extinct aurochs stampeding, with the assistance of his special effects director Ray Tintori. These scenes, perhaps symbolic of that which looms over and menaces our planet, unfold in the story through what Hushpuppy believes is a chaos that she brought into the world when she struck the chest of her father as he lay dying. Through the acceptance of death and by releasing the maternal phantom inside her, Hushpuppy the child, at long last becomes a warrior. Ready to defend “her” ground alone and tread upon the land with euphoria.

A blend of great joy, magic and bitterness, Beasts of the Southern Wild is an epic of hope and love shot out like fireworks lighting up the dark and hardened sky of the past and the future.

by Emilie Padellec

(Editor’s note: My warm thanks to Timothy Ryan Smith, for his translation skills)