Film: Beasts from the Southern Wild (2012)

Beasts from the Southern Wild (2012)

At its most basic level, Beasts from the Southern Wild explores a father and daughter relationship. Anything more to be read from it is up for debate. 

The loose narrative follows a young girl named Hushpuppy, who lives as part of a tight knit community on “The Bathtub”; an island in south US that faces risk of submerging into the sea due to climate change. She has a turbulent but deep connection with her father Wink, a stubborn but proud man who tries to teach her the means to survive and also the value of not giving into fear.

The film firstly introduces Hushpuppy and Wink, followed by their community, as they drink and generally have a good time into the night, where they light fireworks and all that jazz. Accompanying this is an indie-folkish soundtrack which reeks of other quirky festival winning films (Little Miss Sunshine, Juno) and overwhelmingly informs us of how to feel about them; they are our heroes. We are then taught of the danger of the icecap melting and of the prehistoric Orox.

 Things start to become ambiguous however, when Hushpuppy and her father argue, culminating in her punching her father’s chest. What follows is the fall of her father, a roll of thunder and then a scene in which we see a momentous icecap fall into the ocean. I personally assumed she had some kind of superpower for ten minutes, until we then see her father alive and well helping prepare for the flood, as well as not even mentioning their previous encounter where he seemed to be dead. 

It seems no conclusive argument can be made as to the main themes Beasts of the Southern Wild is exploring, as well as what its actually about in the first place! The things that stuck out for me though were the climate change elements. From the very opening scene the importance of the connection between land and people becomes apparent. It is their identity. Later in the film Wink and Hushpuppy are taken out of The Bathtub and to a hospital, where doctors attempt to force medicine on Wink whilst putting Hushpuppy in an awful dress not even fit for a china doll. They become tame without The Bathtub, their defiance and general sense of self is inextricably linked to their natural environment. The Orox too can be seen as metaphorical for Hushpuppy’s fears but also for climate change itself. When we are told that they would not hesitate in devouring anyone, including their own family it is reminiscent of mother earth itself; in the face of man made changes to the atmosphere the earth will not give preference, it will devour anything that stands in its way.