25 May 2022

Quvenzhané, star of "Beasts of the Southern Wild"


Excerpts from a review in Roger Ebert's Journal at the Chicago Sun-Times:
If there is one 2012 movie that seems to have a lock on a best picture nomination, it is "Beasts of the Southern Wild." And if there is a single reason its early viewers have loved it so much, it is an 8-year-old girl named Quvenzhané Wallis, who was six when she filmed it. Here is a case of a great role finding the perfect actress to play it.

"My computer has trouble pronouncing names," I told Quvenzhané not long ago in my living room.

"That's okay," she said. We worked together on a phonetic spelling: kwa van je nay. A beautiful name for this composed young woman, who deserves her own Oscar nomination, and whose nickname is Nazie.

The film is the feature debut of Benh Zeitlin, whose first short subject was made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It's set in The Bathtub, an isolated island area offshore from New Orleans, where the poorest of the poor scramble to survive. Shanties perch on stilts in the delta marshlands. A boat is made from the bed of a pickup truck. The world of prosperity could be on a distant planet. We focus on a girl named Hushpuppy, whose mother has disappeared, whose father is loving but sometimes harsh, and whose determination is indomitable. The feeling is post-apocalyptic, and there are rumors of another storm on the way, one that will flood the islands and their people.

"Beasts" opens on July 6, but is already famous in film circles. At Sundance 2012, it won the Grand Jury Prize. At Cannes, it won the Camera d'Or as best first film. At both, the small girl from Louisiana won hearts with her spunky, straightforward manner in the face of calamity.
(The Ebert source has undergone linkrot since 2012).  Here is the official trailer:


Reposted from 2012 because I rewatched the movie last night (it's streaming on Amazon).  Ten years ago I rated the movie 4+ on my 0-4 rating scale ("worth watching again").  Last night I gave it a rare 4.1 - an improvement perhaps reflective of my increasing maturity, or perhaps because of a cannabis gummy on board.

6 comments:

  1. Such a striking contrast between this post and the Carnage in Syria post.

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    1. Yep. After I did that one, I had to find lighter material.

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    2. Your own version of BoingBoing's unicorn chaser?

      (I found it magnified and sharpened my horror and sadness at the Syria post -- which is not a bad thing.)

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    3. Sort of, but it's a broader concept be the blog content. I try to balance things, so that the page doesn't have a series of text-only posts, or too many science posts in a row, or multiple videos, or politics or some other topic too frequently or too close together.

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  2. I just saw this film and have to say WOW, it was so very good and that little girl's performance riveting.

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    1. Glad to hear it. I'm still waiting for the book (currently I'm #8 on the waiting list for a library system with 3 copies, so it should be just a couple weeks...)

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