Sundance ‘12: Beasts of the Southern Wild review
The first film I saw at this year’s Sundance Film Festival turned out to be perhaps the most acclaimed of the entire fest, taking home the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Dramatic, with the NY Times exclaiming it as “among the best films to play at the festival in two decades.” The film is about a 6 year old girl named Hushpuppy (an outstanding Quvenzhané Wallis) who lives with her father Wink (Dwight Henry) in a post-apocalyptic wasteland called The Bathtub that in actuality is a small community of fisherman and heavy-drinkers. Her world is so insular, it was about halfway through the film before I realized this was set in present day on the wrong side of the levee in New Orleans. Light on plotting but heavy on feeling, the story - told from Hushpuppy’s point of view as she narrates the film - features occasional fantastical elements that leave the film positioned just outside reality. Stylistically ‘Beasts’ is somewhere between Terry Gilliam (“Tideland” in particular) and Terry Malick (or at least, early David Gordon Green) with a dash of those Levis “Go Forth” ads.
This is the debut film from writer/director Benh Zeitlin, who adapted the film from his acclaimed 25 minute short “Glory At Sea” (see below), and co-wrote the Arcade Fire-ish score (along with Dan Romer) which is is one of the highlights. The cast of non-actors is impressive with Wallis as an absolute standout as the film’s strong-willed center. Too esoteric to be a commercial vehicle, it will be fascinating to see what Fox Searchlight (who picked up the film for distribution) does with it. (I had pictured it being more of an Oscilloscope release.) While I’m not quite as over-the-moon about the film as some - the middle section does start to drag - I can’t deny what a strange and powerful experience it was. At one point, much to my own surprise, I was literally brought to tears. After Hushpuppy encounters a mother figure, her and several other Bathtub children are walking over a hill and a triumphant music cue that kicks in. Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face, without even being sure as to why. Without sentimentality or manipulation, the film nonetheless casts a strange spell that can’t be denied.
