Watching Beasts of the Southern
Wild (BOTSW) is an experience I would compare to walking through downtown
and stumbling upon the greatest street performance of your life. You walk away
perplexed and full of questions. Why isn’t this being performed all over the
nation? Where did these performers obtain their skills? With an unknown
director, an unknown cast, and unknown writers BOTSW stimulates a
similar effect. An original, heart wrenching, spiritual journey, through the
magical insight of a six-year old girl in a very real demise of her world.
Narrator and protagonist of the
film, six-year old, Hushpuppy captures audiences with her uplifting charisma
and intuition, from moment the film begins. She is played by the unknown,
Quvenzhane Wallis, who gains a well worth oscar nod and propelled acting career
from her stellar debut. Wallis shares the big screen with another unknown whose
performance also lands him a future career in acting. Dwight Henry makes his
debut with a raw and captivating portrayal of Hushpuppy’s hot tempered father
Wink. Their relationship propels the magical realism narrative that first time
maestro director Benh Zeitlin navigates perfectly.
A third unknown and arguably most
important character of the film is the fictional community the Bathtub.
Although not a human, the Bathtub boast more personality, life, and identity
than any other character. It is where Hushpuppy and Wink reside and what gives
them their identity. Zeitlin choreographs an introduction to the Bathtub (and
film) that paints a beautiful picture of what a world untouched and separate
from modern society would look like. A world where gender is fluid, class is
singular, and race is non existent. Men wearing dresses and women wearing
suits, of all ethnicities embrace each other in celebration. The celebration is
abstractly light by the fireworks they light in glee, mystifying the
Bathtub.The opening scene lets viewers know that this community separate from
government agenda and religious creed is the work for fantasy.
Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar choose to
show the demise of a fantasy location (the Bathtub) in opposition to the
clearly paralleled destruction done by Hurricane Katrina. Their decision is
dexterous in reaching audiences members, fantasty can be used within narratives
in order to bend the mind of it’s audience. In BOTSW this fantastical
world opens audience member’s perspective to see climate change as a real
threat within the narrative. Also it allows for the juxtaposition of the
Bathtub to modern day America. The comparison can be seen through Hushpuppy.
We are introduced to Hushpuppy as a
part of joyous community that accepts her for who she is. Which is a tough,
stubborn, fierce, compassionate, lively soul. Everything we came to understand
Hushpuppy to be in the Bathtub is stripped of her when she is withdrawn from
her home by the government and installed into their society. We see her dressed
to be what society expects a little six-year girl should look like. Hushpuppy
is stripped of her identity in order to fulfill the normative expectations of
America.
Martin Niemoller has a famous quote where he expresses the
ideology of human nature to not be concerned with an issue until it’s their
own, he express this using the holocaust as his platform for example. This
ideology is is also institutional, the government does not concern themselves
with the issues of the poor members of the Bathtub until it becomes their issue
(when Hushpuppy destroys the levee). Hushpuppy understands that it is her
individual duty to “take care of things smaller and sweeter than
you are.” BOTSW reminds the public that we must take care of the
building issues in our world today before they become catastrophe. Even if our
part is small it is still important. Hushpuppy’s spiritual insight tells us
that “when you're a small piece of a big puzzle, you gotta fix what you can.”
No comments:
Post a Comment