Friday, June 26, 2015

Beasts of the Southern Wild


     Beasts of the Southern Wild begins in a fictional off-the-grid community known as The Bathtub. In the community lies a young girl named Hushpuppy facing orphanage. Her mother is gone and her father, Wink, is a carefree reckless spirit who doesn't even live in the same home as Hushpuppy. Most of the time Hushpuppy is left to fend for herself. We're shown her cooking her own food and living on her own.

     There's a school (boat) where Hushpuppy is taught by Miss Bathsheba, who tells the kids, "Learn to live with one another, and adapt!"

     Soon, Wink comes down with an illness, and suddenly - in a very convenient time that coincides with the plot - reality falls apart and a massive storm brews, ice caps melt, basically 2012 all over again. Hushpuppy believes that reality falling apart and Wink becoming sick are related.

     Elsewhere, prehistoric beasts start to come out of the ice caps and begin to roam.

     More elsewhere, back at the Bathtub, instead of the community freaking out they decide to party to their deaths, woohoo! The next morning they find their community almost completely submerged.

     Wink decides to teach Hushpuppy about fending for herself, teaching her how to fish with her bare hands. Unfortunately it ends with Hushpuppy injuring her hand.

     The next morning, Wink was seen sneaking out with a giant garfish filled with explosives. In essence he was going on a kamikaze mission to blow up the leeve keeping all the water in, basically draining the Bathtub. Miss Bathsheba realizes this is a bad idea and tries to stop Wink. The results are bad - the Bathtub is dead.

     And meanwhile, the beasts thawed from ice are roaming the lands....

     Right afterwards, the Government captures the people of the Bathtub and essentially subjects them to imprisonment hospitals. They're gloomy and sad, and the government tests the people of the Bathtub and quickly find out Wink is dying. Hushpuppy finds out.

    It hits her that Wink isn't the superman dad she thought he was. He's on his deathbed, but Hushpuppy sees a light and figures she should chase it for some reason. Something about her mother or something. Suddenly a mysterious boatman picks her out of the water, they go to a nightclub, there's a woman with eyes like her's, there's a moment of love.

     Hushpuppy returns to her father, but she meets up with the beasts. They have a moment of primal understanding and they go on their way.

     Hushpuppy shares one last meal with Wink, she returns to her friends and family as a hardened warrior and they go into the Southern Wild as a pack.

     Honestly this movie didn't make much sense to me, I wasn't a fan of it at all and the story was extremely difficult to follow.

1 comment:

  1. Ian,

    I appreciate your honesty. Additionally, although your post is mainly retell I find it strangely compelling.

    MM

    ReplyDelete