Beasts of the Southern Wild
Benh Zeitlin’s short film, GLORY AT SEA, rendered post-Katrina grief with an overwhelming sense of magic realism. BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, his feature-length debut, contains much of the same thing. Zeitlin’s lavish setting is an imaginary community called “The Bathtub” off the coast of Southern Louisiana, where a six-year-old African-American girl named Hushpuppy (a stunningly committed performance from newcomer Quvenzhané Wallis) lives on the swampier side of a levee with her strict father Wink, who relishes his daughter with hyperbolic tales of her absent mother. As Wink suffers from a terminal illness, Hushpuppy's reality gradually dissolves, a transition Zeitlin renders with a fantastic eye for natural wonder. The whole movie inhabits Hushpuppy’s outlook, as she listens to those around her and draws colorful conclusions. (Eric Kohn)
- Quvenzhané Wallis - Hushpuppy
- Dwight Henry - Wink
- Lowell Landes - Walrus
- Levy Easterly - Jean-Battiste
- Lucy Alibar
- Benh Zeitlin
- Ben Richardson
- Steve Boeddeker
- Affonso Gonçalves
- Crockett Doob
- Dan Romer
- Benh Zeitlin
- Alex DiGerlando
- Stephani Lewis
Entertainment One Films International