Review of Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) by Tbonewest — 15 Jul 2012
I wanted to like this movie. The reviews I read were glowing: a reaffirmation of the Black family. A tale of wonder. A feisty "dandelion haired" 6 year old Black girl struggling against the destructive power of a consumer power oriented real world.
A tale of an unconventional father's love. The story of a "true loving community". What I saw was an attempt to portray abject and total squalor as heroic. A community of total drunks and mental misfits holding out against what?.
.. adequate food, a dry roof, and medical care? The line between real and fantasy is blurred in this movie, but it appears to show the girl and her child friends, eating shrimp and crabs thrown onto the floor as they grovel in the spent shellfish shells.
I wanted to cheer for her anti-establishment living arrangment, but opted instead to call DFACS. There are a few poetic scenes- the girl romping through the meadow, the girl holding up to her ear living things to apparently hear what they are saying.
.. I have always been a died in the wool anti-establishment type, and I appreciate the idea of alternative communities...but these people lived like pigs. There is nothing heroic, nor worth protecting about their lifestyle.
If you relish the idea of a drunk, mental father, dying of some un-named disease, mentoring his 6 year old daughter to survive alone after his passing, by instilling in her the idea that she is strong and fearless, while living in a tideland, in a hovel made out of scraps of sheet metal, then you will love this movie.
Otherwise, you will ask the ticket taker for the telephone number for the nearest child protection agency.
This review of Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) was written by Tbonewest on 15 Jul 2012.
Beasts of the Southern Wild has generally received very positive reviews.
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