Wisdom of a Child: Beasts of the Southern Wild

Empowerment is a central focus of American society.  It is the heart of our discussion about freedom.  We want to be free to be who we are, to do what we want to do (so long as we hurt no one else),  and one of the main keys to this in American society is the power to tell people stopping us from wanting to do our own thing, “Leave us alone!”  This is a power that people in the past didn’t have.  We don’t have to go far back in history to find large masses of people being arrested, imprisoned, tortured and killed because they were living their lives the way they wanted to live them.  Most Americans are offended by the idea of persecuting or prosecuting people because they are black, gay, atheist, or a child.  The American answer to all these cases is to empower the people to refute persecution with law.

However, there are still masses of people who are not given such empowerment.  One type of community that is still vulnerable to persecution is presented in Beasts of the Southern Wild.  The residents of The Bathtub, an island on the “wrong” side of a levy, are a truly wild people.  They make their own homes, determine their own work, create their own lifestyles, without regard to law or “normal” culture.  The way they raise their children, what they teach in schools, how they associate with one another is completely without regard to societal norms, and that’s the way they like it.  The scariest thing for them is to be institutionalized, to be forced to live according to someone else’s rules.  There are pockets of this feral community throughout the United States: you can find them in homeless camps and in outback rural areas.   And they frighten the majority of mainstream cultures.  Feral communities are depicted as dangerous in such films as Deliverance, The Wicker Man and in recent films like Winter’s Bone.

Beasts of the Southern Wild, however, takes a very different view of feral communities.  The Bathtub is a joyful, if not especially bright, community, full of innovation and support and love.  Even though many of them barely survive, they are still vibrant.   Although floods come to devastate their community, this isn’t a story of desperation and rescue.  In fact, salvation from the outside is the enemy.  While most of us would be on our roofs, waving to the helicopters, they crawl in drying hovels, hoping the helicopters would go away.  Because for the feral community, empowerment is separation from government, separation from laws and the police and from anyone who wants to “save” them.  Even when their land becomes unlivable.

This film is not about the community, as fascinating as I find it.  It is a movie about the empowerment of one person—Hushpuppy a very young girl tossed to and fro by circumstances.  In the mainstream community, we see such a child as necessary to be protected, because she is so frail, so vulnerable.   But is she really?  Does she have resources that we know nothing about?  Absolutely. 

Where the Wild Things Are, Tideland, Spirited Away and Pan’s Labyrinth are three films on my top 100 movies of all time.  The Spirit of the Beehive and the Iranian film The Mirror also are powerful films. And they all deal with a child’s resilience in the face of tremendous crises.  The Mirror is the most simple one, displaying a child lost in the midst of a huge city, but using her own independence and determination to make it home.  Pan’s Labyrinth and Beehive has a child in the midst of fascist oppression, undermining it through powerful determination.   Spirited Away has a child in a spirit world with rules she doesn’t really understand but her hard work and innate talents shine in the midst of crisis.  Tideland is perhaps the hardest of these films to watch, with a young girl becoming orphaned in a dangerous wilderness.  Where the Wild Things are has a child facing down the toughest opponent of all: his own lack of control and anger.

A child, along with the developmentally disabled and mentally ill, is the one who has the least ability to be empowered.   Yet all of these films give the main tools for empowerment for the most helpless and vulnerable.  It is not law, for law requires some legal standing and experience.  It is not governmental authority, because adults do not really understand the perspective and need of the child (or mentally ill).  How can a hopeless, helpless child be empowered?

For a change, movies give us a key.  All of these films, including Beasts of the Southern Wild, give us the key: determination and imagination. 

It is the imaginative who are empowered, because even if they cannot understand the complexities and massive scale of the trouble they are in, they can use their imagination to grasp it in a way they can grasp.  The solutions may be beyond their ability to intellectually fine, but they can use their imagination to find a path that will lead to survival.  As adults, we might dismiss imagination as being something less than reality.  But imagination can stand in place of reality, giving us empowerment in situations that we cannot live with otherwise.  This is the wisdom of the child.

It is the determined who are empowered, even if they have no other sword to wield.  Only the determined will see through their survival and safety to the end.  The determined can not only deliver themselves, but others as well.   The determined remains on the path to their goal, no matter what obstacles, no matter how wayward the path, no matter any naysayer.  Only the determined have the faith necessary to reach safety.  This is the wisdom of the child.

Although children, and others in powerless situations, may lack in traditional intelligence or resources that normally means survival, if they (or we) have that imaginative determination we can and will survive.  Perhaps these are qualities we should encourage.  For these are the true leaders of our society.

Frankenstein, Pokemon and Franco

There is more to Frankenstein than meets the eye.   

Originally written as a philosophical horror novel by Mary Shelley—a stunt to impress her friends—it has become a fable, a warning.  The novel spoke of what it takes to be human, and how a thing created by humanity could or could not be counted as human.  The James Whale/Boris Karloff film stated their theme right at the beginning of the film: There are some pursuits that man should never explore, for they remain only in the hand of God.   In a sense, these represent the two most popular themes in which the fiction enters into culture: The recognition of sentience, even if made by human hands; and, the limitations of science.  This has clearly entered into our current discussions on cloning, but also on artificial intelligence, genetics and potential contact with extraterrestrial life.  The ethics of these discussions can be linked to the ethical discussions of either the novel or the film Frankenstein.

This influence is not strictly limited to the English speaking lands, either.  Mocked though it is in some circles, Pokemon: The First Movie owes much to the novel Frankenstein.  MewTwo is a cloning experiment gone array,  with great powers, but out of the control of his creator.   MewTwo determines to use his powers to attack all humanity for their indifference and abuse of his species, Pokemon.   In the end (this is a spoiler, in case you were dying to see this film), he realizes that humanity does have compassion and love for Pokemon and calls off his attack.  Like the monster in the novel, Frankenstein, MewTwo is allowed long, rambling soliloquies.  It is frankly a better and more ethical film than most people give it a chance to be.

The Spanish film, The Spirit of the Beehive, directed by Victor  Erice, wears its influence on its sleeve.   The movie opens with a scene showing the town where the action takes place watching the Whale film Frankenstein.   Erice himself said that the whole film is encapsulated in one scene from that original film, where the monster is throwing flowers in the lake with a little girl.  We can see this influence throughout the film, as different characters are seen to be like the monster or similar to the doctor of the Whale film.  The monster from the Whale film even makes an appearance near the end of Spirit.

But what Spirit of the Beehive is actually about is difficult to determine.  Clearly it is rich with symbolism.  Symbols of death abound.  Characters wander or pace without much purpose.  There is a rich background, but no explanation given as to the import of the background.  The movie focuses on the little girl, Ana—played marvelously by Ana Torrent—but is the film about her, about her family or about the town?  Or is it about all of us?

A little bit of study (and watching a documentary on the film supplied by Criterion Collection on their DVD package—thanks again, Criterion!), gives us a better understanding of the film.  I won’t give away any spoilers, here, but I think there is some information that is helpful to understand.  The Spirit of the Beehive was made in 1973, near the end of Franco’s regime in Spain.  The film takes place in 1940, when Franco’s takeover just occurred.  Ana’s family was involved with the leftists, who opposed Franco.  Ana assists a rebel against Franco’s regime.   The listlessness of the parents are due to the fact that they have nothing to work for, as they have no place in the new regime. 

Thus, The Spirit of the Beehive is one of the great pieces of art to come from protest of Franco’s actions.  This list includes Hemingway novels, Dali paintings, and, in this millennium, films by Del Toro.  Erice remains symbolic and indirect because he is making this film under Franco’s rule, in Spain.  Like the Russian filmmaker, Andrei Tarkovsky , the censorship he must work under causes him to create works of art that are brilliant and intellectually statisfying the more one watches them.  However, unlike Tarkovsky ,  Erice has created a work of such deep humanity and joy alongside the hidden meanings and despair, that it is a pleasure to watch.  While Tarkovsky is often a towering intellect, The Spirit of the Beehive is not only intellectually satisfying, but is also wonderful film about childhood and the joys and confusion that we all have when children.  It communicates the isolation we can often feel from those we should be closest to.   It connects to all of us.

Finally, what does the Spanish Civil War have to do with Frankenstein?  How could Erice and Angel Santos—the writers of the film—have conceived such a connection?  It is found in the answer to Ana’s question after watching the film Frankenstein: “Why did the monster kill the girl?  Why did they kill him?”  The answer is given in the film: When you are separated from your humanity, then the most inhuman acts are accepted.  The Spirit of the Beehive is filled with people who see themselves as separated from humanity as the monster was in the film.  And there have been many regimes that have caused such destruction of people’s souls, thus resulting in the destruction of many bodies.  This film is a protest, not just against Franco, but against any government that limits the humanity of its own citizens.