Beasts of the Southern Wild: Beyond the Delta

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Directed By: Benh Zeitlin

Written By: Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin

Starring: Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry

Director of Photography: Ben Richardson, Editors: Crockett Doob and Affonso Gocalves, Production Designer: Alex DiGerlando, Original Music: Dan Romer and Benh Zeitlin

            After the first ten minutes of the Sundance smash Beasts of the Southern Wild, I was ready to flee from the theater. Set in an area of Southern Louisiana called “the Bathtub,” the film quickly introduces us to our protagonist Hushpuppy, who says lines about how all the universe is connected. Her home is a grassy plain filled with trash and animals and full of characters who speak with pride about an us vs. them mentality. The director Benh Zeitlin fills the palate with intense non-linear shots that confuse the viewer into astonishment, not to mention the overbearing score. Oh God, what have I walked into? Yes, Beasts is not your typical Sundance film—there’s no mumbling, no digital video, and no 20-somethings attempting to figure out what to do with their trust-funded lives—but damn, I thought, is that precociousness and sense of wonder going to feel like my head being slammed against the wall.

            But then, I gave in, and accepted Zeitlin’s film on its own terms: a fairy tale, and an imaginative one at that, set as a coming of age story in a part of Americana rarely explored on film. Beasts never quite won me over—the amount of tears pouring from my fellow audience was quite a contrast to my dry face—but its earnestness and exploration of familial relationship centered itself.

            But wait! How can someone just like this film? Either you must be over the moon, calling it one of the best films to ever play at Sundance, or as Ignatiy Vishnevetsky prefers, “bullshit.” To not love this film is to reveal that you are a callous and cynical critic who can’t accept a film for its given premises and to not hate it is to reveal you are a sucker for fraudulent cinematic techniques. There has been too much digital ink poured over Beasts of the Southern Wild that it almost feels like discussions are no longer about the film. Tim Grierson writes at Deadspin that Beasts is a “model independent film,” which means the problems of Beasts must stand for the entirety of filmmaking outside of Hollywood (and you thought Lena Dunham had it bad!).

Martha Marcy May Marlene: Terror of a Fragmented Mind

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Written and Directed By: Sean Durkin
Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, Hugh Dancy, Brady Corbet, Julia Garner, and Louisa Krause.
Director of Photography: Jody Lee Lipes, Editor: Zachary Stuart-Pontier, Production Designer: Chad Keith, Original Music: Daniel Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans
Rated: R for things rather not spoiled.

            If you go see the independent thriller, Martha Marcy May Marlene, which you most definitely should, I want you to sit as close to the screen as possible. Not because I want you to hurt your neck (in that case, go a few rows back), but I want you to be engulfed by the film's intense close-ups, which will put you in the most psychologically uncomfortable position possible. I want you to really feel each loud sound that disrupts this film full of silences. I want you to feel as paranoid as its main character, feeling that any moment of calm can be instantly destroyed by unknown forces creeping just outside the frame.

            Martha Marcy May Marlene is the latest in a series of independent features from the United States that appear to be ushering in a new wave of smartly composed films that reject the DIY mumblecore genre in favor of a cinema of haunting compositions and dynamic narratives. Although the film is directed by newcomer Sean Durkin, some of the other names in the credits show the evolving filmmaking collective: a producer of the film is Antonio Campos, who shot the haunting surveillance thriller Afterschool, and that film’s director of photography Jody Lee Lipes also create haunting shadow filled frames here. But here it is Mr. Durkin, as well as his impressive cast led by Elizabeth Olsen, that leads what is an intensely intimate character study in the guise of a mystery that does less conventional scares and more spine-tingling chills.

New York Film Festival: Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene

Martha Marcy May Marlene

A Film By Sean Durkin

USA

            If you go see the independent thriller, Martha Marcy May Marlene, which you most definitely should, I want you to sit as close to the screen as possible. Not because I want you to hurt your neck (in that case, go a few rows back), but I want you to be engulfed by this film full of intense close-ups that will put you in the most uncomfortable position possible. I want you to really feel each loud sound that disrupts this  film full of silences. I want you to feel as paranoid as its main character, feeling that any moment of calm can be instantly destroyed by unknown forces creeping just outside the frame.

            Martha Marcy May Marlene is the latest in a series of independent features from the United States that appear to be ushering in a new wave of smartly composed films that reject the DIY mumblecore genre in favor of a cinema of haunting compositions and dynamic narratives, but still at the independent level. Although the film is directed by newcomer Sean Durkin, some of the other names in the credits show the evolving filmmaking collective: a producer of the film is Antonio Campos, who shot the haunting surveillance thriller Afterschool, and that film’s director of photography Jody Lee Lipes also create haunting work here (as well as in the coming-of-age comedy Tiny Furniture). But here it is Mr. Durkin, as well as his impressive cast led by Elizabeth Olsen, that leads what is an intensely intimate character study in the guise of a mystery that does less conventional scares and more spine-tingling chills.