Beast Mode

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) is slightly out of our comfort zone, but we had to watch it. We were living in Tallahassee when they were filming it, and even though it was made in Louisiana, it had a hometown feel. So it finally floated to the top of the queue.

It stars 5- or 6-year old Quvenzhane Wallis as Hushpuppy, a little girl who lives in the Louisiana bayou country, in a place called the Bathtub. She is a curious, self-sufficient kid, who spends her days hanging out with her pigs and chickens. She lives in a mobile home jacked up on stilts by herself. Her father, Dwight Henry, lives in another stilted-up trailer near by and calls her for “feed up”, a goose taken from a cooler and popped on the grill.

Her daddy isn’t much of a father to her. One day, he is just gone, and he doesn’t come back for a while - when he does, he’s wearing a hospital gown and he’s very angry. Her mother doesn’t seem to be in the picture at all. Quvenzhane goes to school on a houseboat, where her teacher tells her about the ancient aurochs frozen in the tundra, and how they will soon be released by global warming.

When a hurricane hits, they ride it out with neighbors, mostly drunks and reprobates. When it’s over, the Bathtub is flooded, and as the days go by, it looks like the waters aren’t going down. So some of the locals decide to blow up the levee - and Quvenzhane pulls the trigger. But saltwater has damaged the land, and even if it dries out, it won’t be fertile.

The government steps calls a mandatory evacuation and drags everyone off to a sterile processing center, but they soon break free and return. Quvenzhane and her friends swim out to catch a boat to the floating whorehouse and casino where she thinks she might find her mother. One lady there picks her up and she thinks, “I’ve only been picked up twice” while flashing back to her father carrying her as a newborn. But she has to go back to “take care” of her father.

He has been sick for a while, his “blood has turned against him” (leukemia?). When he dies, the town builds a pyre for him, and sets off in his boat, made from a pickup truck bed.

This is an interesting movie, but no question that little Quvenzhane makes it. She is sweet, fierce, independent, and strong. She is not in a good situation - the watery land of the Bathtub is beautiful, but it is not at all safe. She burns down her trailer, maybe on purpose, and she fights with her father a lot - and he isn’t tender. But he teaches her to be strong, to be a beast, to never surrender to man or nature. Her teacher may know more about the sun, the moon, and the herbs than about reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic, but she also teaches pride and care for the earth.

So, the story kind of meanders, and there’s more than a bit of poverty porn in the movie. But seeing a little black girl showing her guns and screaming defiance at the world is beautiful, and I’m glad we got to see this.