Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

 [screenrush]

That's the most important thing I can ever teach y'all; y'all got to learn how to take care of people smaller and sweeter than you are.

Beasts of the Southern Wild begins with a tour de force in narrative structure, clarity and precision: three scenes introducing six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), her father Wink (Dwight Henry), and their multicultural bayou community in southern Louisiana. Hushpuppy has a profound understanding of the internal balance holding the world together; she has an organic relationship with nature, and sees herself as "a little piece in a big, big universe." And thus the film builds up its main theme in the most commanding and elegant of ways, as it places Hushpuppy at the very centre of a world falling apart: she now has to deal with the fatal illness of her father and the destruction of her community by a Hurricane Katrina-like storm.

Director, co-writer and co-composer Benh Zeitlin created a highly original and visually stunning film, which successfully blends elements of social and magic realism. Hushpuppy, for example, argues that since the world depends on everything fitting together, if one piece breaks "the entire universe will get busted;" this view is visualised through the imaginative story of the Aurocks, fierce creatures freed from the melting ice caps in the Arctic due to global warming, and heading to Louisiana. Hushpuppy will eventually have to confront them, in what is one of the most moving scenes of the film. Moving, however, is an understatement when it comes to addressing the performance of Quvenzhané Wallis, as well as that of Dwight Henry; both display the exquisite expressiveness, originality, and naturalness that non-professional actors are gifted with.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is an ingenious coming-of-age story that works across the individual and the collective level and displays a significant degree of social concsiousness and environmental awareness. Above all, however, it is a quintessential example of independent filmmaking that surpasses the conventions and constraints of mainstream studio productions. The work of directors as varied as John Cassavetes, Majid Majidi, Kelly Reichardt, and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, has made clear that it is not big budgets that matter; on the contrary, great cinema thrives on creativity with a soul and an edge. And the greatest merit of Beasts of the Southern Wild is that it has got both.