Beasts Of The Southern Wild – Deep Dive

Context

Beasts Of The Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012) is an award winning indie film which tells the story of a poor father and daughter living in a small Delta community under the threat of flood. The central character ‘Hushpuppy’ wants to find her mother as life gradually becomes more challenging and her father experiences a sickness. This drama follows the story of these two characters and all the problems they encounter in this particular environment of poverty. The film opened to fantastic reviews following its success at the Sundance film festival and would go on to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Beasts Of The Southern Wild, famously, was one of the most critically acclaimed releases of 2012 and a particularly big success within the independent cinema scene of that time. Effectively a ‘post-dogma’ scene in which digital equipment had taken over and quickly become the new norm. Reminiscent of the Roger Corman ‘philosophy’ of new Hollywood, filmmakers were gradually becoming used to a financially conservative, low budget system in which small, independent financing companies were placing their faith in the innovation and limitations of undiscovered filmmakers looking to break into the industry. Beasts Of The Southern Wild was released at an interesting time in recent cinema history and arguably demonstrates the kind of stories being told by those with budgetary limitations. Other than the obvious aesthetic influences of indie cinema of the 90s and 2000s, low budget directors and writers were producing small intimate stories in which they could rely on telling engaging and empathetic tales of realistic settings (easy to capture with limited financial backing) and natural characters (made all the more convincing when they don’t have to spend money on established Hollywood stars and instead employ undiscovered talent meaning that the audience has no preconceptions of personalities seen on screen going into the movie).

Aesthetics

Stylistically, the filmmaker clearly takes a lot of inspiration from the work of Wong Kar Wai and independent cinema of Japan as so many independent filmmakers have. Relating to the relatively minimal budget of the production, this style is extremely easy to replicate and is also (from a practical perspective in relation to time constraints and efficiency) very ‘easy’ to attain coverage of a scene in a short space of time. This involves utilising hand held cameras, a provocative score, voice over and aesthetically pleasing visuals to create a grounded and naturalistic atmosphere and a structurally efficient method of executing said story. In the same vein as Terrence Malick’s work, a lot of the character development comes in the form of voiceover and various plot points are integrated into a more sporadic and free flowing filmmaking sensibility. Another effect of the ‘pick up and shoot’ feel (intentional or not) is that it places the viewer in the subjective perspective of our central protagonist ‘Hushpuppy’ whose innocence and growing strength in the face of adversity defines how we as the audience perceive these narrative progressions.

Representation & Ideology

A famously divisive element of the narrative is how the film, to an extent, ‘romanticizes’ the lives of those living in poverty. The representation of the poor is one that lends itself to much debate but it could be argued that the beautiful aesthetics of the overall environment do not accurately demonstrate the extreme pain, struggles and genuine anguish people in these conditions must inevitably go through. The representation of the poor is effectively ‘watered down’ to such a degree that the final product in terms of character arcs, the way people react to the undeniably awful things taking place in their already challenging circumstances, and how a living space such as this is presented to us as the receptive audience member, hits with far too little impact and genuine comment than it should do. Specifically during the first act of the film, the atmosphere could almost be labelled as ‘homely’ and inviting- the exact opposite kind of emotions a creator may wish to convey if they wanted a mostly privileged Western audience to respond in a genuinely empathetic and critical manner. In fact, the conclusion of the film (whilst cathartic in nature) may even leave viewers, who live in much better conditions, feeling almost relieved. The structure dismisses the fact that the lives of the poor will inevitably continue to be unimaginably difficult and that the issues facing third world communities won’t just ‘magically’ disappear, which is why I believe the fantasy elements of the film to be well executed but, from a representation and ideological standpoint, a mistake.

The representation of black people may also be considered problematic in ways as the father figure of the film is shown as being almost stubborn in nature. At many points in the film, this character is offered assistance and he is shown responding aggressively to these actions. Black people are not aggressive or dismissive and this representation of race is certainly wrong and also inconsistent. However, one extremely positive example of representation found within the film, is the representation of female characters, specifically Hushpuppy. She’s shown as strong, determined, sensitive and extremely emotionally intelligent and receptive for a person of her age. This is an extremely positive element of this movie and goes towards showing female characters in an accurate and progressive light.

It could be argued that the overall ideology presented within the film and through the characters written in the screenplay, is one of hope but not necessarily accuracy. The aim may be to present a philosophy that states that with collaboration and a persevering approach to the issues that come with a challenging way of living, everything will be okay in the end (symbolised through Hushpuppy’s final strengthening interaction with the mythical ‘Aurochs’). This does not however cut to the deep and extremely corrupt issues of the world and society at large and what should be done to solve these issues or support these people. Issues a lot more complex than the film would have you believe and routed in the selfish nature of people in positions of power (figures not depicted in the film).

Spectatorship

As previously mentioned when discussing the aesthetics of this film, the fundamental storytelling tool that’s utilised to follow these characters is engagement and subjectivity. We are encouraged to empathise with and follow the characters at the same pace that they experience the events of the story. We are never placed ahead of the characters unlike other objective pieces of work with a more ‘puzzle-like’ sensibility in terms of story structure. Intimate, personal stories like Beasts Of The Southern Wild wholeheartedly rely upon how engaged a viewer is to a character such as Hushpuppy at any given moment and, due to its low budget, never leans upon the images and sounds of extreme ‘spectacle’ to illicit a response from an audience member. Through each and every shot or line of dialogue, the filmmaker is aspiring to sustain the audience’s attention and propel the characters through the story. A story defined less by its encouragement for judgement of its ideologies and personas, and a lot more by its aim for the cinematic techniques and construction to be viscerally driven.