Thursday, March 31, 2016

Beast of the Southern Wild #meganpoulin


The protagonist of this movie was a young girl named Hushpuppy (Academy Award-nominee Quvenzhane Wallis), if this was her real name I do not know. This movie was about her, a young girl living in "The Bathtub," this was an isolated society that existed off the grid [as is, you have a run-on; potential solutions are to break it up into two or drop the 'this was']. Within this society she lived with her father; however, they had separate homes in the beginning.

Hushpuppy's family is quite dysfunctional. Her father and her [she] have an odd relationship that seems to be based on masculinity or rather strength or toughness [you could elaborate here by providing examples in support e.g. "Beast it!"]. In this movie Hushpuppy must deal with the inevitable death of her father and the fact that her home is destroyed by a storm. Hushpuppy herself seems to have a direct impact on the environment. It almost seems like pathetic fallacy [very nice; I was unfamiliar with this term. You may want to consider explaining/teasing it out for your audience], but not quite. This gives the movie a supernatural aspect to it. One example of this is when Hushpuppy hits her father out of anger and then it shows [a cutaway of] the glaciers collapsing. It's the beginning of the storm and Hushpuppy says, "Mama, I think I broke something." This makes it seem as if she caused the storm because of her emotion. It makes it seem as if she has more power than any regular child. The giant ancient pigs [the aurochs] were the only thing that really confused me, but I think they probably represent her courage or something like that [excellent].

This movie was very beautiful, and I enjoyed it. I thought the plot line was very interesting, and the entire movie seemed to have this air to it. I think the [non-diegetic] voice over of  Hushpuppy talking was the reason for this because it was strange to hear all those inspiring quotes in a kids voice. Overall I thought the movie was good, and I would absolutely watch it again.

Excellent post Megan. I wonder if rather than using the poster for your image, a shot of Hushpuppy communing with the auroch would be more relevant/appropriate? I am pleased.

MM

1 comment:

  1. Megan,

    I thoroughly enjoyed your post. I have made some comments and suggestions directly in its body.

    MM

    ReplyDelete