E N T E R T A I N M E N T

Beasts Of The Southern Wild

I was astonished to discover that the filmmaker Benh Zeitlin is a Jewish New Yorker still in his twenties. Not only does his wondrous movie display a wisdom and benevolence not normally attributable to one so young, but his characters and location the bayou country of the deep South are alive in a way that would

otherwise suggest they could only have been created by somebody who spoke their tongue, breathed their air and trudged through their alligatorinfested swamps. Hushpuppy (Quvenzhan Wallis) is a six-year-old black girl living with her dissolute father, Wink (Dwight Henry), in the Bathtub, a ramshackle community of societys outcasts and deros. Over the horizon, behind a flood-wall, are the towers of industry and commerce, but

Hushpuppy will never be part of that world. When we first meet her she is wearing a singlet, orange knickers and white gumboots, and she is holding to her ear one of the chicks that will eventually provide a meal for her. She listens to its heartbeat, she speaks to us: The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. Despite their dire poverty and isolation, she and her Dad are devoted to each other and, in a way that is incomprehensible to more well-off outsiders, they and their fellows have found their own happiness and sense of belonging. Wink, however, is dying with an incurable illness and Hushpuppy must come to terms with the looming loss as a ruinous storm sweeps in from the coast. And all the time she is troubled by the fearsome idea of the prehistoric aurochs There is more than just the occasional echo of Tree Of Life in the impressionistic, fluid approach, but where Terrence Malick gave us highfalutin drivel, Zeitlins modesty and unfailing eye for the unbowed humanity of his subjects is always inclusive. Wallis and Henry are both remarkable and, near the end, when little Hushpuppy confronts the aurochs, Ill be damned if I didnt burst into tears. Unique, bold and, even with the hand-held camera, a soaring achievement. ~ John Campbell

barely survives the ordeal. Shirley Moochmore (Rebecca Gibney), mother of five girls, is wont to burst into songs from The Sound of Music in the backyard. When she is carted off to the loony bin, her cheating husband Barry (Anthony LaPaglia), who is also the mayor of the town, picks up a hitchhiker, Shaz (Toni Collette), and installs her as his daughters minder. Its a pretty shaky start, and things dont improve much when it becomes apparent that Shaz, the dope-smoking free spirit (yawn) will turn the stultifying suburban world in which she finds herself upside down, while at the same time transforming the lives of her charges. The representations of the conformist neighbours goes beyond parody into feeble clich and Collette, great actress though she is, would have served her character better by not playing it in Crocodile Dundee mode nobody says youse all the time. Apart from an hilarious set-piece involving Shaz, the stitched-up bitch next door and her long-legged daughter, the jokes hit the ground with a deafening thud, but unexpectedly there are Mental more serious rabbits pulled What a strange movie. It shifts from the hat that dramatically from attempted humour change the movies tone. to far-fetched melodrama Coral (Lily Sullivan), the eldest without warning and concludes Moochmore sister, embarks in silliness. The script, at on a romance with Trout times incoherent, at others (Sam Clark), the boy who annoyingly gauche, has the works at the aquarium run by imprint of one thats been mysterious, threatening Trevor written by committee, which, (Liev Scheiber), who happens given the involvement of no to be deeply involved in the fewer than three government funding bodies, might not be too far from the truth it
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secret of Shazs past. As par for the course, those who live in the burbs are regarded with disdain, but if you can look beyond that black hole in the collective imagination of our arts community, you will appreciate the fine performances of the youngsters and the photography of Donald McAlpine. ~ John Campbell

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The Byron Shire Echo October 9, 2012 27