Beasts of the Southern Wild (4/5 Stars)

A movie randomly dropped from the sky and landing in a cineplex near you…hopefully

Once in awhile a movie comes along that will make you walk out of the theater wondering, “Where the hell did that come from?” “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” is one of those movies. It tells the story of Hushpuppy, the five-year-old daughter of Wink, a man who lives in the Bathtub, a fresh water island off the coast of Louisiana. The place is a primitive paradise. Its residents are dirt poor but as is happily explained by Hushpuppy's voiceover, they hardly work either. The movie starts with a community festival that seems to be held for no particular reason (TGIF?) and features lots of moonshine and fireworks.

The movie is told from the viewpoint of Hushpuppy who is at an age when all the world is sensational lights and magical places. She spends most of her time outdoors without the supervision of her absentee parents. One hobby she has involves picking up animals and placing them at her ear to hear their heartbeats. Her school consists of a class with only five little kids and a teacher who seems to know more wives tales than regular subjects. During one class she shows the kids a tattoo on her thigh of a cave painting of a prehistoric animal named the Auroch. Hushpuppy is told that the gigantic boarish Aurochs died during the last ice age. She also learns a little about Global Warming, represented by the ugly smokestacks on the other side of the levee. In Hushpuppy’s imagination, the smokestacks melt the polar ice caps, which unfreezes the prehistoric Aurochs that start marching South for a dramatic confrontation with the Bathtub, the first place in Louisiana (or the world) that will go if the sea levels rise.

Not that this movie is at all a political statement about Global Warming. It is far more interested in Nature, period, and it shows it in all its grandeur being both good and evil. Hushpuppy given her height and childish inclination is extremely close to her ecosystem. The natural world is a terrifying wonder to her. Take the scene where she accidentally burns her house trailer down (Yes that is a five year old in a scene with a huge uncontrolled fire that is taking over the kitchen) and the scene with the great storm that bears down on the Bathtub, putting the entirety of it underwater.

Go ahead and say that this is a veiled allusion to Hurricane Katrina. The important thing, movie-wise, is that it would work with or without knowledge of the history of that storm. As I said: no politics here. Keep in mind that the Bathtub is on the wrong side of the levees anyway and none of the residents are expecting or asking for help from the inside world. In fact, the residents completely ignore the government helicopters telling them to leave the now ruined Bathtub/disaster area.

There was one part though that did remind me of the documentary about Katrina, “Trouble the Water,” which was composed entirely of on the ground informal camerawork by people in the area of the worst flooding. There was a scene in that movie right before Katrina hit when the filmmakers were going around the neighborhood and asking fellow neighbors whether they planned to leave before the storm hit. There was this one guy who instead planned to smoke and drink his way through the storm. Which is what he did. He got black out drunk and stoned. The next week they found him dead drowned in the first floor of his house. I would say it was one of the less tragic deaths resulting from Katrina. I bring this up because the Bathtub residents sort of have the same attitude about hurricanes, in that a bunch of them get really drunk and stoned as the great storm hits. And then they die. Of course, I want to make a point that this is not dealt with like it is some sort of cruel tragedy. In fact, sometimes it is rather entertaining. For instance, I got a big kick out of when Wink got mad at the storm, went outside into the brunt of it all with a bottle of moonshine and a shotgun, let off plenty of rounds, and cursed up a storm of his own.

In many ways this movie could not have been made fifty years ago. To have made a movie like this back then, with the special effects that this movie beautifully pulls off (fireworks galore, Gigantic Aurochs), you would have needed a ton of money. And if for some unlikely reason, huge rich producers did make an expensive movie about people so poor as the residents of the Bathtub it would certainly condescendingly pitiful. The culture is so far removed from most of American life, that it constantly surprises senses of decorum. Wink by all means is not a good father. He yells at and hits his kid. He goes awol for days at a time. He leaves her during a hurricane to get black out drunk and shoot shotguns shells at a force of nature. At the same time though, and this is perhaps the biggest point I want to make here, is that the movie is extremely full of life. It is not a downer in any sense of the word. It just contains a lot of elements that more privileged filmmakers would handily use in a highbrow adaptation of Les Miserables. The fact that this movie can be made by people who must know the characters intimately is a promising sign of the democratization of movies that comes from the boon of new digital technology. Young poor filmmakers should go see this movie and be inspired by what is now possible with very little.

Some movies need an unknown cast to make it work at all. This is one of them. You won’t recognize anybody in this movie and that’s a good thing. Wink for instance is a character that sort of needs messed up teeth. If you casted Jamie Foxx or Will Smith and their perfect teeth it would not make any sense. As for Hushpuppy, because of her age, casting a known actress is almost impossible. In any case, this is by far the best acting I ever seen from someone her age. The field is rather narrow I know, but the performance is perfect. As I said before, Wink isn’t the most pleasant man in the world, but Hushpuppy is never cowed by him. She matches him with toughness in every scene they are in. There is one great seen where she is being taught how to eat a crab. Another resident makes the mistake of trying to teach her how to break open the crab with a knife. Wink gets pissed off and insists that Hushpuppy tears apart the crab with her hands like a man. Hushpuppy is up to the challenge. She rips open the crab, eats it right with gusto, and then stands on the table screaming in triumph and flexing her arms as the entire room cheers. “Who’s the man?” Wink yells. “I’m the man!!!” Hushpuppy yells back. In a way, a performance like this one kind of lowers my impression of acting as a whole, because really, if a five year old can pull off one of the best performances of the year (and this one will certainly be bandied about for perhaps a possible nomination come Oscar time) than how hard can acting in general be?

I know you have never heard of the director, writer, or actors of this movie. I know you’ve never seen the place or witnessed a plot like this one. I know you’re wondering what the hell are Aurochs doing in a movie at all. Think of it this way: If this movie without a recognizable plot, director, writers, or stars somehow made it to a Cineplex near you, then it must be good. Otherwise why would savvy theater owners show it? Nobody is going to want to see a bad movie with no recognizable plot, director, writers, or stars.  You, says this critic, should not be afraid of seeing it yourself.