The film “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is focused around imagery. Unlike conventional films, it immerses the viewer in scenes of nature, both violent and harsh, and calm and beautiful. The matching filmography and media supports the film, which elevates Beasts of the Southern Wild; as a result the film is confusing if one doesn’t pay attention closely.
Beasts of the Southern Wild focuses on three main points about Hushpuppy, the main character: her leadership, her emotions and her surroundings, in just a mere one and a half hours. The film Avatar (2009) captures a similar character experience and environmental destruction, despite running for an hour longer.
At the start of the film Beasts of the Southern Wild, we witness the staging of the scenes, showing the inhabitants and the environment of ‘The Bathtub’: a relatively unknown island off the south coast of North America. There is then the start of the film, in which Hushpuppy’s relationship with Wink, her father is revealed to be strained. Then suddenly the whole Bathtub is washed away in a violent storm and flood. Hushpuppy is plunged into a new world, but with Wink leading and taking charge, she is still relatively unchanged.
Now looking at Avatar, Jake Sully is introduced to a planet on which he will fight the Na’Vi, the original inhabitants of the planet. He spies the Na’Vi as his avatar, a Na’Vi with his linked consciousness, but realises that it is the humans that are the ones he should fight, despite being human himself.
The characters in both these films have a choice to remain as the sheep, or to become the shepherd. They both come to know that the path they take is not the one lit by others, it is the one they must discover and pursue themselves; Hushpuppy with her father’s illness, and Jake with his moral sense outweighing his humanity and his original orders. Both events made the characters independent and shaped their behaviours and emotions.
Emotions influence the decisions that Hushpuppy and Jake Sully make, however, it is their emotions that are what set them apart. As a child, Hushpuppy seems to want to leave her father often, being aggressively treated. We see that she is torn: whether to leave her father and disobey him, or to stay by him and let him lead the way. This is chosen for her when Wink is taken to hospital, with a blood disease, and she is forced to be independent. Jake Sully faces a similar decision, although much easier for him to choose; he can obey his evil masters, or fight for what is right which he does. In both cases, the characters in the film struggle through their journey to independence, and through this experience pain and suffering. Jake and Hushpuppy decide to set them aside, because time was against them and they had to take action, despite their feelings.
Finally, there is the message of climate change and human destruction of natural surrounds in both films. Being partially animated with a budget 200x larger than Beasts of the Southern Wild, one expects Avatar to be more showy and dramatic with the scenes where environmental damage is great. However, Avatar’s animations of burning trees, falling wood and explosions are just a sideshow.
Beasts of the Southern Wild focuses intently on the climate and nature and is the greatest message it tries to convey. The significance of the flooding right at the introduction of the film sets the entire scene for the movie, showing the beauty of the Bathtub ruined by something, to us, that is just a downpour. Avatar shows the direct influence of climate change, portrayed by us humans destroying the native wildlife, but Beasts shows the passive, indirect destruction.
In summary, we see two seemingly alike films, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Avatar, contrasting highly in plot, filmmaking and character. Whilst Avatar is the classic action/fantasy supermovie, Beasts of the Southern Wild shows the true effects of our inaction today in society impacting such fragile and beautiful ecosystems such as the Bathtub. (which is still here today, but like Venice, might sink any time soon)