This summer has been packed with box office hits (The Dark
Knight Rises) and art house favorites (Moonrise Kingdom). However, one film stands out
as not only the best film of the summer, but one of the top films of the year, The Beasts of the
Southern Wild. Based on Lucy Alibar’s play “Juicy and Delicious”, Hushpuppy is
a six-year old girl trying to survive in the squalor of her Delta, post-Katrina,
home by attempting to find her mother, while her father, Wink, is dying of
heart failure. Despite his alcoholism and embittered attitude, Wink teaches his
daughter how to become independent by living off the land and water.
Like Mike Nichols
and Sam Mendes, Benh Zeitlin has created a directorial debut that is sure to be
a modern masterpiece as time moves on. Zeitlin managed to create a dark and
beautiful film by mixing the cinema verite style of John Cassavetes while
honing in on Hushpuppy’s nightmarish/wide-eyed imagination that mirrors the
work of Terry Gilliam. Zeitlin’s guerrilla styled filmmaking is complimented by
his own musical score with its suspenseful pizzicato passages and Appalachian-styled
sequences that echo T-Bone Burnett’s Southern-infused film scores from Crazy
Heart and O Brother, Where Art Thou?
In
addition to the incredible filmmaking is an incredible cast of unknowns, who deliver
astonishing performances from start to finish. Quvenzhané Wallis is
awe-inspiring as the young, tenacious Hushpuppy. Only six-years old, Wallis delivers
a moving performance of shifting from childhood to adulthood through pain and
hope. New Orleans bakery owner, Dwight Henry, is incredible as the stubborn and
sickly patriarch who manages to teach Hushpuppy the importance of standing
strong in a sorrowful world through love as tough as nails.
The
Dark Knight Rises might have been explosive with its quarter of a billion
dollar budget, but with a cast of unknowns and a budget under $2 million, The Beasts
of the Southern Wild is proof positive that you don’t need to be swayed by
dazzling special effects and star power to get a profound response; you can
easily be moved to tears with a heartfelt and harrowing tale, such as this
film, that will leave you speechless when the credits roll.
Four out of Four Stars
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