In a forgotten world there is a little six-year old girl struggling to understand life and the world around here. Luxuries seem to be unimportant, as exemplified when the narrator exclaims: " in a million years, when kids go to school, they gonna know: once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in The Bathtub."
In a modern world where we live today it is quite hard to imagine living this way, where you cannot buy your food in a wrapped cellophane, where you have no future career plans and where money is not first priority.
This movie is fascinating. When the director chose Quvenzhané Wallis, she was not what he was looking for, but she impressed the crew with her natural and brilliant performance. We can see that although Hushpuppy is very young and we would expect her to be naive, unprotected and not knowing anything about life, in actuality, she is far more knowledgeable than the viewer expects. She is wise and the way she interprets that which happens around her is a mixture of imagination and wisdom . This can be seen in one of her thoughts : "The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece, the whole universe will get busted." She wishes to say that we should take care of nature and respect it without changing the environment to our own good.
The director provides a valuable point about being in a community. The community within "Beast of the Southern Wild" tries hard to keep away from modern society. What is important to them is that they take care of each other, and race does not seem to matter. Like one of the character says : "The most important thing I can teach youâ?? you gotta learn to take care of people smaller and sweeter than you are."
To be brave enough to face life without any comfort you must be " the beast".
Hello Michelle, great post !!!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you and I want to point out this part of your post "The community within "Beast of the Southern Wild" tries hard to keep away from modern society"
That is exactly what I got from the movie. It is possible to realize that they were living in peace distant from the modern society, however, even far away from us, “civilized man”, their homes and life were destroyed. How? We all know that weather is crazy nowadays, and it is probably men’s fault for destroying the planet. The thing is that they had to pay for it as well, and a high price. They had to leave their place, if they do not want to leave, they were forced to. It is funny Michelle how “civilized man” wants to interfere in everything. We want to set what is right or wrong, what people can or cannot do. This movie is awesome.
Yeah, Victor. I agree with Michelle too. It was a good movie, but quite sad as well. And the thing about "no man is an island", is quite pronounced during the scenes and it cohoborates its arguments with the thought that the outside society destroying environment influenced even theyr throwback community.
ReplyDeleteLittle Wallis definitely deserves her Oscar nomination – at age 9 – being the youngest in history. However she was a mere 6 when it was shot.
It was a very nice film.
Little Wallis was definitely outstanding, but what Benh Zeitlin did was even more impressive. He was able to brilliantly show the decadence through the eyes of a child. Even though, the family lives in extremely poor condition, the little girl, could recognize beauty in such dreadful place.
ReplyDeleteI can understand why and how Michelle liked it, but in some ways I think this movie is too romantic and naive, showing a bright side if you really think about the hellish condition that they live in. It's lighter than the reality showed suggests.
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