Beasts of the Southern Wild
A six-year-old girl from the southern Delta searches for her long-lost mother after her father falls ill and her world spins out of balance in the film that took home the Grand Jury Prize and Best Cinematography award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. A harsh but loving father, Wink swore that his beloved daughter Hushpuppy would be prepared for the day he was no longer able to look after her. Little did Wink realize that day would come sooner than anyone suspected, and when illness strikes him down, nature runs amuck. As the soaring temperatures melt ice caps and the sea levels swell, a race of prehistoric beasts named the aurochs emerge to reclaim the planet. Meanwhile, as the apocalypse unfolds, determined Hushpuppy bravely sets out on a mission to reunite with the mother she's never known.
Director: Benh Zeitlin
Starring: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry, Lowell Landes, Levy Easterly
This movie is a blast of sheer, improbable joy, a boisterous, thrilling action movie with a protagonist who can hold her own alongside Katniss Everdeen, Princess Merida and the other brave young heroines of 2012.
Director Benh Zeitlin and his co-writer Lucy Alibar, a playwright whose "Juicy and Delicious" was the inspiration, have created characters that are wondrously indelible, distinctive of voice and set them inside a story that will unleash a devastating hurricane, and a flood of emotions, before it is done.
The movie is small, local, and idiosyncratic. Then again, it's also a thing of beauty and originality - and for that, sustained huzzahs are in order.
There's no way you won't be captivated by Wallis, chosen ahead of 3,500 candidates to play the tiny folk hero who narrates the story. Her performance in this deceptively small film is a towering achievement.
There's no trace of calculation, only artistic ambitions and hopes that have come to fruition in the year's finest film thus far.
Benh Zeitlin
British Film Institute Awards (2012)
Best Foreign Independent Film
British Independent Film Awards (2012)
Un Certain Regard
Cannes Film Festival (2012)
Best Film
Deauville Film Festival (2012)
Quvenzhané Wallis
Gotham Awards (2012)