journal features

movie review - Beasts of the Southern Wild

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2018.05.07

This is a telling of the eradication of the culture of the marginal islands in the Gulf along Louisiana. Set in a time of rising sea levels and extensive mis-management by the oil industry, we follow a six-year-old girl through the harrowing events leading to the death of hear father. He's struggling with an unnamed disease (which appears to be an operable heart ailment) but is too stubborn, erratic, and impoverished to deal with the matter. The mother is nowhere to be found (initially) and the girl is learning to take care of herself.

When a storm comes and the island community is dispersed the few hangers-on dig each other out. But the land's been poisoned with salt water (and likely by petroleum industry bi-products) and things go from bad to worse. To alleviate the flooding, some of the adults - following the girl's father's lead - decide to bomb the levee. When this happens the authorities turn up and take everyone to a shelter "for their own good".

This movie is well shot and the handful of characters feel authentic. How they managed some of the sets they filmed I can't tell, but the flooding and post-flooding disaster were brilliant. The girl's journey through these dangerous weeks is a mix of real and fantasy, however, with some kind of mythical bull-boar creatures making a pilgrimage to visit her. I wasn't sure what they were meant to add to the film, and it all resolved to nothing in the end. But the inclusion of this thread in the story made me wonder if the girl's discovery of her mother late in the tale was meant to be literal. I thought the "aurocs" were a needless distraction. Nevertheless, it is an unusual story and it's great to see something on a human scale dealing with things like growing up and death and the coming climate catastrophe in a relatable way. At the end of the movie the girl declares in narration that "Some day scientists will work it all out and discover that there was a girl named Hushpuppy who lived with her daddy. I know I am just a tiny part of a large universe and that makes it okay." You're damn right.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.