Benh Zeitlin makes unruly fantasies in which children’s imagined worlds belong beside the dangers around them. We value his conviction, but his affection for people surviving hardship can make him too forgiving of what children endure.
Fi1m perspective
In Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), Hushpuppy’s fear of the weather cannot be separated from her attachment to home or her troubles with her father. Zeitlin lets those worries feed the fantasy rather than explaining them away. We were moved by Quvenzhané Wallis because she makes the girl’s vulnerability felt even when the film is busy celebrating her toughness. She gives us someone to care about when the surrounding enthusiasm threatens to become too much.
The stop-motion Egg (2005), a retelling of Moby-Dick, shows how early he was drawn to remaking familiar stories. Glory at Sea (2008), made in New Orleans, preceded his feature debut, Beasts of the Southern Wild, co-written with Lucy Alibar. His habit of casting non-professionals and preparing them extensively matters to the work. The performances need to feel unforced if the fantasy is to grow out of ordinary fears.
Zeitlin’s collaborative working methods leave room for contributions from cast, crew and local communities. Practical locations and found objects help give his imagined worlds things we can recognise and believe in. Yet his own music can be less willing to leave us alone: the score he wrote with Dan Romer for Beasts of the Southern Wild is rousing, sometimes excessively so. It keeps encouraging us to share the community’s defiance when Wallis has already given us good reason to worry.
His affection for the community also causes the film’s most serious problem. The screenplay’s pleasure in its independence sometimes makes concern for Hushpuppy’s welfare seem unwelcome. The father-daughter scenes admit an unease that the broader celebration of survival is reluctant to examine. We recommend the film, but we do not accept every demand its adults make of the child.
Wendy (2020), his second feature, reimagined Peter Pan, with Eliza Zeitlin as co-writer. It kept childhood and fantasy at the centre of his work. We would welcome a film that gives the adults’ responsibilities as much attention as the children’s resourcefulness.
Biography
Benh Zeitlin is an American filmmaker. He directed, co-wrote the screenplay with Lucy Alibar, and composed the music for the feature Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012).
Zeitlin was born in New York City on 14 October 1982 and raised in Queens and Hastings-on-Hudson. He graduated from Wesleyan University, where he studied film. His debut feature received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Zeitlin’s second feature, Wendy (2020), which he wrote and directed, was released eight years later.
