The Debris of the Soul

The complete cinematic experience consists of the interaction between the external screen and our internal emotions. With this spirit, I watched Beasts of the Southern Wild, a visually enchanting and difficult movie. In it, the apocalyptic photography, the music, and the sound produce a dreamy dimension. This movie is about being brave, about desperate love that transcends the boundaries of bodies and spaces. It is ultimately about the transmission of knowledge from parents to daughter.

The setting is a surreal industrial pre and post Katrina “bathtub.” The leading actor is a child with the acting skills of Marlon Brando, who carries the audience along the debris of souls, the shanty and disordered places, and the magic of realism. Hushpuppy is her name. The movie has few direct dialogues. What we see, hear, and perceive is through Hushpuppy’s eyes. Some actors are silent throughout the length of the movie. Some others are the background of a marginal world where children wonder around and they are always cared as one’s own.

A scene, a joyful break in the story, reveals a floating world of sex trade, joyful encounters, and recuperated love. Food, dance, affection surround Hushpuppy and her silent friends who finally find some peace in the loving harms of “girls girls girls.” This movie moves at every scene; it embraces the audience. Suddenly the emotions of impossibility and apparent motionlessness leave the path to distraction from one's self because stories develop despite and beyond boundaries and expectations.