Magical Realism In Beasts Of The Southern Wild

Through childish optimism and untamed imagination, Beasts of the Southern Wild offers a fresh perspective on the art of survival, the force of nature, and the human experience. It is an extraordinary film perceived through the lens of a fearlessly strong six year old, Hushpuppy, learning to make sense of the damaged, yet beautiful world in which she inhabits. Hushpuppy’s unrelenting resourcefulness and buoyancy are portrayed by magical realism through the auroch beasts of Hushpuppy’s imagination to allow the audience to better understand the extent to which humans will go in order to survive despite nature’s often destructive, unanticipated, and uncontrollable tendencies that humans will never surpass. Behn Zeitlin’s utilization of magical

The technical and narrational elements help to emphasize the meaning and importance of this film in relation to one’s personal experiences and the means through which the film was created.

Magical realism is established early on within the film as Hushpuppy’s schoolteacher discusses the life of the universe through the beasts. She introduces the beasts by means of a tattoo apparent on her upper right thigh. The tattoo is an auroch, described as “a fierce, mean creature that walked the earth back when we all lived in the caves”. With this being the first introduction of the beasts, Hushpuppy’s childlike imagination is revealed as she begins to wonder about the ways of the universe and her purpose to live within the all of it. Throughout the entire film, the aurochs are presented through a multitude of close-angle shots as they travel from the melted ice caps to the “bathtub”, Hushpuppy’s home. As the aurochs become more frequent, the feeling of childlike wonder is reemphasized and carried out for the remainder of the film. The audience is able to better understand Hushpuppy’s character and her circumstantial conflicts in relation to