“Beasts of the Southern Wild”

With thun­der­storms rolling through the city, you might be won­der­ing how to plan your week­end. Set­tling into a big-screen movie remains a clas­sic option for a sum­mer day, whether you are try­ing to beat the heat or stay out of the rain. Along with the usual main­stream action and com­edy fare, this sea­son brings us “Beasts of the South­ern Wild,” a fan­tasy drama cen­tered around a six year-old girl named Hush­puppy, played by Quven­zhané Wal­lis (pic­tured, right).

The film fol­lows Hush­puppy and her com­mu­nity who inten­tion­ally live iso­lated from the rest of soci­ety in The Bath­tub, a half-submerged coastal com­mu­nity on the Mis­sisippi river delta. Hushpuppy’s com­mu­nity is orga­nized around liv­ing autonomously off of the land and she embod­ies an inti­mate con­nec­tion to the nat­ural world. At the begin­ning of the film, Hush­puppy puts her ear up to ani­mals’ chests in order to hear their heart­beats; she informs us that all liv­ing things have a heart beat and they all speak in a lan­guage, even if we don’t under­stand. Her sage nar­ra­tion through­out the film is punc­tu­ated with intense clips of polar ice caps melt­ing and wild beasts charg­ing, remind­ing us that the actions of human soci­eties dra­mat­i­cally impact the har­mony of the nat­ural world. Through its use of mag­i­cal real­ism, the film presents inter­per­sonal and social con­flicts as alle­gories for global warm­ing and Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina in a man­ner that is both deft and visu­ally striking.

Cur­rently play­ing at sev­eral loca­tions through­out the city, “Beasts of the South­ern Wild,” chal­lenges our expec­ta­tions of nar­ra­tive film while also pre­sent­ing the issue of cli­mate change in an intrigu­ing and artis­tic way.

Images: Star News Online (top), Beasts of the South­ern Wild (cen­ter and bot­tom)