This is a film that came from nowhere and got a lot of critics heaping praise on it. It's the story of a six year old girl (wonderfully played by Quvenzhane Wallis) who lives in a forgotten bayou community on the wrong side of the levee in New Orleans.
When the big storm comes, as all of the bayou residents know it must, then the community needs to fight for its survival.
There are some very moving scenes of community self reliance, people fishing together and building gardens out of nothing and lots of social gatherings where it becomes obvious that the company matters more than anything else.
On the other hand, the six year old's commentary about everything being
connected is either super cute or rather annoying depending on your
point of view and the film does seem to lack energy and direction at some points.
Overall though, it's an important film, because it forces the viewer to think about what might happen when the waters rise where we live.
Beasts of the Southern Wild is on at the Edinburgh Filmhouse until Thursday 20 December.
**
Meanwhile, my haiku today on Daily Haiku is here.
As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.
7 comments:
This interests me. It seems as if there have not been many movies about Katrina so I really think I'll check this out!
When the waters rise...here in Venice we are accustomed to waters rising, the lagoon is fortunately predictable, sirens sound four hours before dangerous tides ( with a new sound in these latest years reminding of Pink Floyd music!)but rivers are more scary stuff, more powerful, less predictable.
Great and very, very wintry haiku.
It's becoming painfully clear that the oceans are rising faster than we expected. Our East Coast has had that brought home to them most emphatically.
Thanks for this review, Juliet. I love having community teamwork and self-reliance modeled to us in a movie, as you describe this film doing. The movie I'd REALLY like to see made, though, would be about people in New Orleans or another low-lying area facing the fact that climate change means their home is no longer truly habitable, and then dealing successfully with that. In other words, I want to see a movie about determined, proactive climate refugees. Hmm . . . given that you're quickly becoming a famous writer of haiku, I wonder if you might consider writing a haiku about climate refugees . . .
Hi Alison - I think the people in this film do know that their home is no longer really habitable, but they remain powerless because they are poor and very much ignored by any of the powers that be.
As to the haiku, climate change refugees - complex issue for a haiku, but I am writing a novel on the theme...
I saw this the other night at my local neighborhood theater after reading your review. I found it powerful and disturbing. I was disturbed because her father was so neglectful and abusive, and nobody in the close-knit community seemed aware of that, or addressed it. I did notice that the teacher in the small/informal school told the children about the world's melting ice caps, and the permanent flooding that would mean for their home. 'Thank you for telling the truth,' I thought.
Concerning the child's commentary on the connectedness of all things, I didn't find it either cute or annoying. I just found it accurate.
I think this movie is much more worthwhile than most movies. It's about resourceful people who have very little money -- which describes the majority of the world's population, yet almost no movies are made about people with low incomes. I'm glad this movie has gotten recognition and is being widely seen.
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