Beasts of the southern wild and Avatar: A film comparison. For a school assignment.
I was required to compare Beasts of the southern wild to another film. I chose avatar as a counterpart. Here is my personal opinion on these respective films:
Beasts of the southern wild is a 2012 fantasy/Drama film directed by Benh Zeitlin with a budget of 1.8 million US dollars. The film follows the relationship between Wink and his daughter Hushpuppy. They confront a flood as well as Wink’s health issues.
Initially watching the film it was evident that Beasts of the southern wild was not going to be a flashy blockbuster film, to put it politely the visuals were quite dull and lifeless. But I imagined that perhaps the plot combined with articulate storytelling would compensate. Immediately after watching Beasts of the southern wild, I thought wow what did I just watch. The plot was completely illogical and mind-boggling, why does Hushpuppy live in a separate house? Why did she burn down her house? Where is the character development arc? All of these confusing elements combined with the lack of urgency and threats in addition to the unnecessary addition of Aurochs into the ending I found myself puzzled over the message of the film. The only element of the film I found to be enjoyable was the believable acting.
Avatar is a 2009 film science fiction film directed by James Cameron, the film had a budget of 237 million US dollars. The film follows Jake Sully who finds his loyalties divided between the natives and the humans or “Sky People”. Eventually, the greed of the humans leads the natives and humans to war over resources.
Avatar is an amazing film, I have watched it countless times and will continue to rewatch it. To begin the visuals are spectacular: The CGI is picturesque and sensational. Even for today’s standards, it excels. When it comes to the plot the film does not lack, the storyline is relatively simple to understand with the motives and development of the characters being obvious with the actors performing convincingly. There is a clear urgency with the characters being overshadowed by the looming threat of conflict. The only issue with the film is the lack of memorable moments. Overall, the film is excellent and extremely watchable.
Storytelling and plot
Aside from my personal bias, it is clear that the respective films approached storytelling in contrastingly different methods. The storytelling of beasts of the southern wild is unconventional. It opted for storytelling on a more abstract but confusing level, leaving a trail of hints for the viewer to decide their own meanings. In some scenes of the film we see the icebergs collapsing, this possibly foreshadows that some type of change is occurring. Opposing this is the storytelling of Avatar, in the film the storytelling is more concrete and it is more evident what the motives of the races are. The film then throws us puzzle pieces, once we put together them together we understand that maybe conflict is evident. In Avatar, when we first meet the protagonist Jake Sully, we are most certainly on the side of the humans. We see from the human’s perspective that the natives are savages and refuse co-operation. We then begin to understand the perspective of the natives and we decide that maybe the humans are the villains. While we still have to think about the plot of the film it is easier to comprehend.
Structure
If I could choose one flaw from Beasts of the southern wild to nullify it would be the structure. The events are completely random with occurring in no logical order. Why does Hushpuppy only go to see her mother at the end of the film if she could have just gone at any time? She clearly missed her mother if she felt the need to hang her clothes on a wall. Why does Hushpuppy burn down her house? In Avatar the structure is rigid. The events happen for a good reason and not out of the blue. The colonel gives Jake Sully many opportunities to negotiate with the natives before bombing the home tree. He doesn’t randomly wake up and decide the attack the natives. This logic is not clearly evident in Beasts of the Southern wild
These two films certainly had their merits but both lacked to varying degrees in certain elements. Despite the contrasting film styles, they both emphasized the common theme of man’s relationship with nature. In Avatar this was embodied in the Natives co-existence with nature, similar to that of our own native peoples. In Beasts of the southern wild, it was the impact of natural disasters on marginalised communities and their simplistic lifestyles. Both were different films with the same message. We must coexist with nature.
