Cheat To Win

One of the most striking aspects of “Beasts,” given its pedigree, is the way it blends realism and fantasy, allegory and observation. “Once there was a Hushpuppy,” the narrator (herself the Hushpuppy in question, played by the remarkable Quvenzhané Wallis) informs us, and this 6-year-old girl, living in tough circumstances in a stretch of Louisiana bayou called the Bathtub, very much resembles the heroine of a fairy tale. Her father, Wink (Dwight Henry), is a dying king in difficult times, bequeathing his realm — mainly squalid trailers and old oil drums, but also an ethos, a tribe and a way of life — to his resourceful and rebellious daughter. And if the girl is vulnerable, she is also powerful, her temperament a tough alloy of innocence, stubbornness and guile…

The magic of “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is that it does not worry too much about distinguishing among the elements of this quest, or inviting the viewer to sort them into different levels of meaning. It may be possible to surmise, in retrospect, that the aurochs (as the mythic beasts here are called) are symbolic, that Hushpuppy’s bittersweet meeting with her mother is a dream (or a case of mistaken identity) and that the actual world this child inhabits is more full of weeping than she can understand.

My favorite film of the year was the recipient of a gushing piece from A.O. Scott in the NY Times.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is crossing the pond!

We’re so happy to announce Beasts will open in select UK theaters on 10/19/2012. 

Was more excited than necessary to see this photo on the Facebook wall for Beasts of the Southern Wild, still my favorite film of the year.

Bow down and worship.  She is queen.

Director Benh Zeitlin holds up actress Quvenzhane Wallis as they accept the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic award for the film Beasts of the Southern Wild during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony in Park City, Utah.

If you aren’t obsessed with this film, I have serious hesitations regarding your soul.

Source

Listening to the score from Beasts of the Southern Wild all day. Can’t stop, won’t stop.

For all his attention to verisimilitude, though, Zeitlin is bound to get some flack for being a nerdy white Wesleyan University grad from Hastings-on-­Hudson making a movie about hardscrabble black folks from the South. Amid the acclaim, there have been whispered charges of cultural misappropriation, and the director is braced for more: “Lena Dunham [creator of HBO’s Girls] is getting a lot of shit for being a privileged white person who only has privileged white people in her show,” Zeitlin says. “I assume I’ll take shit for being a privileged white person who doesn’t have white people [in my movie]. We’re so obsessed about race and class in this country.” But he considers the debate irrelevant. “The film doesn’t have anything to say about being a poor black person,” he says. “To me, the Bathtub is a different society where money doesn’t exist. It’s not like some people have money and others don’t. It’s a place where people feel tremendous pride in living off the land. Beasts is a celebration of that.”

I love this profile on Quvenzhané Wallis not only because she is adorable but also because she’s a strong, intelligent powerhouse of an actress.  It’s also phenomenal that the piece discusses the inevitable backlash regarding the racial make up of our country and the problematic dynamic of a middle-class white man writing a film starring only people of color.

In short, I am still counting down the days until this film is released, and this article only continues to whet my appetite.