Beasts of the Southern Wild (Zeitlin, 2012)
We watched Train Dreams on Netflix on Saturday night — full review coming tomorrow — and the film that popped into my head while I was watching it was this beautiful oddity from 2012, Ben Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild.
They have almost nothing in common with each other — not location, not protagonists or time period, not even thematically — but there was a vibration about Train Dreams that made me want to find out whether Beasts was available online for me to recommend.
I’m pleased to report that it is.
Although I saw the film at a sold out NZ International Film Festival screening (squeezed into the very front row at the Embassy as I recall), I didn’t review it until the proper release in November (almost 13 years ago to the day):
Beasts of the Southern Wild is something else – a dream, a nightmare, a mythology, a fairy story. In an out-of-the-way Louisiana bayou known to the locals as the Bathtub, little Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) lives with her emotionally all-over-the-place father (Dwight Henry) and their eccentric neighbours, pets and other assorted wildlife. An incoming storm threatens to overwhelm the levees but the community chooses not to be evacuated, and instead find a way to continue their oddball existence despite their lives being under water. Meanwhile, prehistoric pig creatures called Aurochs have been thawed out of the Arctic and are on their way south to wreak havoc.
I loved this film. I loved little Hushpuppy. I love films that don’t go where you expect and don’t try and pander to the audience. I can’t wait to see it again when it opens on Thursday, but this time I’ll sit a little further back. I found watching Beasts from the front section of seats at the Embassy during the Film Festival to be pretty overwhelming.
Also reviewed in the Capital Times that week: one of my favourite Bonds, Skyfall1 and chilling little thriller Compliance.
Where to watch Beasts of the Southern Wild
Aotearoa: Digital rental from AroVision (among others)
Australia: Digital rental
Canada: Digital rental
Ireland: Digital rental
India: Not currently available online
USA: Streaming on HBO Max
UK: Streaming on StudioCanal
“After an extremely agreeable afternoon watching the new Bond film, Skyfall – and making plans to see it again quick-smart – I remembered that before the weekend was out I was going to have to pick holes in it for your entertainment.
And to be honest, I don’t really feel like it. Partly because it’s an extremely entertaining blockbuster popcorn movie, also because it walks the fine line between honouring and reinventing Bond’s 22 film mythology, but mainly because it often becomes a really good proper film with characters and drama and acting and that.”
