BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD by Bryan Tosh

Beasts of the Southern Wild is the Sundance Film Festival darling of the year. An emotional story told through the eyes of a little southern Louisiana girl named Hushpuppy, incredibly played by new comer Quvenzhane Wallis. She lives in a small gulf community outside the safeguard of the levees. She is a curious little thing, as most six year olds are, mostly about all living things, plants, animals.

Although there are other characters in the film, such as her father, Wink (Dwight Henry), the film’s POV is generally via our main character Hushpuppy. We are introduced to how she sees the world both in reality and in part through her imagination. She deals with her wild and unpredictable father as he battles a blood disease and slowly dies in front of her, even though he attempts to hide the disease from Hushpuppy. What Wink doesn’t grasp is how much his daughter already understands about life and death at this tender age.

 

 

As her father struggles with his disease, he also struggles to raise his little girl alone. All he knows is survival out there in the “southern wild”. He takes an approach of the masculine ideal as he teaches his daughter. “No tears” is a lesson she learns from Wink. You’ve got to be tough if you want to survive beyond the levees, which they refer to as “the bathtub”. Hushpuppy wants to be tough for her father and displays evidence thereof throughout the film. She IS a beast of the southern wild. As we see near the end of the film however, some battles can’t be fought or won by just being tough. Wink eventually succumbs to his disease in the climax of the film as father and daughter finally share tears together.

 

As I watched this film I was reminded of another film and book about a child with an active imagination and fantasy, Where The Wild Things Are. I think themes of freedom, fantasy, family, and belonging - among other themes - are shared between these two movies.