Beasts of the Southern Wild

[BB]

nope. overrated snorefest.

for a film with some dark themes but also grand magical realism it made no attempt to ground the fantasy shit in any kind of believable reality. the way the adults talked was GRATING, it was like a badly written play performed by people who had never been told exactly how to deliver their lines. the dad YELLS EVERY LINE.. ok we get it dude, DRAMA! everyone else makes barely any sense,, none of the "community's" relationships work.. oh your dad is in trouble here little girl take this stupid jar to him. what the fuck?

the adults are useless and the kid, who is the centre of the film, is ten times more so. sorry little girl but the reason no one actually gave you any lines to speak live on camera is because little kids can't act. so they had this much foresight but then EVERY line she speaks in her constant narration/monologue is completely lacking any discernible emotion. yes she's reading it, she has no idea what the words mean or why she's saying it, that is all that comes across, it's exactly how the adults sound except she's not screaming.

visually, stylistically, the film cribs from most things that are hip right now. that's why i think people are being tricked into thinking this means anything. overly-tight handheld, check, malicky monologues - check (but in his films the adults are REAL people, albeit sometimes transcending into "one" being speaking with many voices.. the dude's a genius alright, trust me it works when he does it), a stupid little cute kid being silent and emotionless cos she can't act and letting us be tricked that therefore everything that happens to her is "profound" - tell the waiter to bring a wheelbarrow cos this CHECK weighs a fucking tonne.

skip it and watch The Intouchables instead.

Agreed, more or less. Didn't find it boring so much as muddled and poorly-written. Knowing that the director is a white New Yorker, there are weirdly xenocentric undertones throughout and its whole romantic anarcho-primitivism, noble savage thing kinda made me uncomfortable. It's got a really interesting premise, but the execution gets in the way.

I think the movie has gotten a lot of mileage out of its overt thematic content, apparent social relevance (KATRINA!!!!), and super-cute leading lady. It is nice to look at and the production design is superb, but I just wish these elements were at the service of a different story.

[RegularKarate]

Eh, I completely let go with this one and wasn't watching it like a stuck-up, heartless prick so I loved it.

Seriously though, I get what you guys are saying, but I was moved and thought the whole idea was that the story was through the child's eyes so it made sense in that her reality was filtered through kid-brain. The innocence while she was reading the narration stuff felt like a stylistic choice.

[pete]

for all the people accusing it of being empty - do you know see the very strong narrative about a kid dealing with her dad's alcoholism?

[Cloudy]

I feel similar to Karate on this one. I let go completely, and it took me to a very primal place of existence (i lost my shit). I probably can agree with a lot of the critical analysis showing flaws to the film's lack of reality/popular hip aesthetic/etc., but through the eyes of Hushpuppy that's all real/didn't matter to me. I was in a state of wonder while watching the film by how they actually got this film made with such a fucking tight budget of $1-1.5 million. A film like this REQUIRES this kind of budget in order for the work to be honest, and with those minimal resources they created a film with epic scale in feelings and environment. The environment was so impulsive and unpredictable, nature's confusing ways of working was a constant force in the film. This kind of filmmaking NEEDS to be seen, and needs to continue. Epic stories like these with minimal budgets/resources reminds me of the classic storytelling of the past. "Indie" films these days don't RISK it like this.

Usually I'm not a fan of shaky camera unless if the story calls for it, and this film called for it 100%. The camerawork was assuming the perspective of Hushpuppy obviously, but it also just let you step foot into that mud that they were stepping on. The 16mm aesthetic gave it a grounded feel, as if it's documentary footage showing the real thing.

Definitely look into how this film got made, it'll give you an optimistic outlook on film's future for a second (a second).

*Side-Note: Not sure how it will stand up with re-viewings

[©brad]

Yeah you haters are on meth. This movie rocks.

Knowing that the director is a white New Yorker, there are weirdly xenocentric undertones throughout and its whole romantic anarcho-primitivism, noble savage thing kinda made me uncomfortable.

There's a valid argument to be made here that I probably would agree with yet at the same time, I don't really care. Any movie that can hit you in the gut like this transcends its flaws. And P I love you but I think you're dead wrong on Quvenzhane Wallis (Hushpuppy). Her performance affected me more than any other actor this year, including every one in The Master. If you can tell me you weren't completely wrecked by the fury in her eyes as she stared down the beasts or when she gives dad the catfish, well I feel sorry for you. And who the fuck cares whether she understood everything she was saying. That's not the point at all.

This movie is a big, fat middle finger to every independent movie about nothing more than dysfunctional families or whiny, navel-gazing WHITE twenty-somethings finding themselves and bitching about their love lives. For that alone it's worth celebrating. It's about a father teaching his daughter how to survive, and it succeeds amazingly in that regard. It's not perfect but it's no snorefest.

[Alexandro]

the problem with this movie is how vastly overrated it is. on it's own is not that bad, but everyone here and elsewhere claiming they "lost their shit" perhaps should see it again. it has some good stuff going on, but it mostly falls short in the expectations department.

as I said before, around the mid point it starts to drag. any character that is not the girl of the father is pretty much senseless, as pubrick said. I wasn't that bothered with the "noble savage" angle, but in retrospect that was kind of lame. the real problem to me was that I was expecting a much more involving way to tell this story. everything became just a device. the monsters basically said their piece narratively and emotionally from their first appearance, and then repeated that till the end. the father was probably the worst here, and all the adults too. the more I think about the film the more I'm bothered by those little things. and I wouldn't really compare it to pan's labyrinth. that film gets better with subsequent viewings, and I don't see that happening with this one.