Beasts of the Southern Wild

“Beast it!! Beast it!!” are the words chanted by the whimsical group of post-Katrina bayou squatters as six-year-old Hushpuppy breaks open the crab shell and sucks the delicious, white meat from the middle. The dinner scene exemplifies the joyful exuberance of life that prevails despite the profound sadness and poverty found throughout Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild.

On Saturday night, I walked to the High Museum’s Rich Theater for a sneak preview of the film. Having won prizes at Cannes and Sundance, Beasts already has the buzz of a highly successful independent film. Comprised entirely of non-actors, the film follows the fanciful imagination and brutal reality of six-year-old Hushpuppy living in “The Bathtub,” Louisiana. The narrative takes place sometime after Katrina in a nearly post-apocalyptic setting of vast waterlogged landscapes that dwarf the remaining people and houses.

The film opens with voice-over narration as Hushpuppy tells her story. She runs around the dilapidated property and tumbledown trailer wearing a white tank top and orange boys underwear, frequently pausing to listen to an animal or color on a piece of card board. Meals include a recently slaughtered chicken eaten by hand or cat food heated up on the stove. Hushpuppy and her father, Wink, spend their days on the boat – a buoyant truck bed powered by a motor – and catch crawfish by hand. Wink strives to harden Hushpuppy and to make her a self-sufficient and strong “man” of the world.

Magical realism runs deep in the film as Hushpuppy imagines aurochs – a prehistoric beast resembling a terrifying boar. The director Zeitlin uses these imagined creatures to represent the reality of Hushpuppy’s situation and the presence of danger that she confronts everyday. Zeitlin’s camera goes back and forth between Hushpuppy’s daily life and the primordial scenes of the beasts emerging from the melting polar icecaps. By the end of the film, we have the small Hushpuppy in courageous profile facing the aurochs saying, “I gotta take care of mine,” and she walks towards her ailing father. The Biblical animal imagery evokes Noah’s Arc and the aftermath of the flood.

Zeitlin tells a story of human suffering and endurance from the perspective of a child mature beyond her years. She exudes wisdom that cannot be taught. The poetic shot compositions show the microcosms of the world that only a child would notice. A close up of the crawfish dumped out on the table with the small fish still alive and jumping captures the tenuous circle of life.  Hushpuppy later watches raptly as an alligator is gutted, battered, and fried to serve. The film’s photography captures the luminous light of fireworks and twinkling lanterns at night that additionally create a childish magic.

Zeitlin chooses to focus on the beauty rather than the misery, and the images serve to distract from the constant poverty. He uses childlike folklore to create a unique and satisfying examination of a despairing chaotic situation. The strong score of violins and resounding drums pump the film with courage and echo the strength of Hushpuppy. Her story is timeless, triumphant and remarkable to behold on screen.

The Artist

The Artist begins with an intertexual nod to our hero’s predicament. We see a silent film shown in a grand movie house. The scene unfolds as the villain tortures the hero with electrocution commanding him to “SPEAK!” through intertitles. George Valentin, dynamically portrayed by Jean Dujardin, refuses to speak quite literally. He won’t give up his secrets to the villain, and he cannot accept the change in Hollywood from silent to sound cinema “talkies.” Written, directed, and edited by Michael Hazanavicus, the film follows Valentin on an almost fatale trajectory and traces his decline from successful star to forgotten beggar due to his pride, hubris and inability to accept change.

I am instantly reminded of Murnau’s Sunrise (1927), Crossland’s The Jazz Singer (1927), and all things Chaplin as The Artist begins. The references to early Classical Hollywood Cinema are endless. The high key lighting, intertitles, and mickey-mousing effects are artfully and temporally incorporated into the film. The extreme close-ups and over dramatized facial movements are all reminiscent of the late silent period of Hollywood cinema. Historically, many silent film actors experienced difficulty switching to sound, and their public often had a hard time accepting their new “voice.” For example, an actor’s voice might not match with their projected silent screen persona. Valentin is unwilling to conform to the change as young actors and actresses easily embrace sound.

From the beginning we see Valentin as cocky and fame hungry. An early shot shows Valentin in the foreground dwarfed by his own monumental image on the screen - he is bigger than life.  As the actor du jour, girls swoon in his path and one such girl is Peppy Miller played by Bernice Bejo, the real hero of the film. Her tenacious attitude skyrockets her to fame, but throughout her rise she constantly tries to help Valentin as he becomes increasingly obsolete.

The interactions between Peppy and Valentin are tender and show an immediate attraction that they cannot act on. Alone in his dressing room, Peppy slips her hand into his coat, miming an embrace. Valentin is married, but takes Peppy under his wing and encourages her to act. An actual silent film star from the 1930s, Penelope Ann Miller, plays Valentin’s wife Doris. The demise of their marriage starts over the breakfast table, an overt homage to Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941). They grow increasingly distant as she seethes over coffee and takes her pen to his screen bills giving him black teeth and devil horns.

The film only disappoints in its predictability. The plot unfolds, and we expectedly see Peppy become the star and Valentin fall. He physically begins to resemble The Tramp, Charlie Chaplin’s signature character. His wife leaves him, he squanders his money on a failing silent movie, and he auctions off his possessions to pay for his drinking and smoking. All Valentin has left is his dog, another hero of the story. Ever the cinephile, Hazanavicus echoes the Italian neorealist film Umberto D. (De Sica, 1952) that also follows the story of a disillusioned old man and his dog.

Hazanavicus’ integration of sound into the film marks a change for Valentin as he starts to doubt his place in Hollywood, and he begins to dream in sound. The sound editing is ingenious; we hear the clink of the glass on the table, the dog barking, and all the other diagetic sounds of his dressing room. And then in a surreal moment, a feather falls to the ground making a “boom” noise. These small surreal moments are scattered throughout the film and bring an innovative edge to a redone silent classic.

The Oscar nods are well deserved.