Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

Fantastic, both literally and figuratively, this story of a 6 year old girl who lives in squalid poverty in a Louisiana flood plain with her sick father (mother is out of the picture) is unexpectedly beautiful, though Jack and I were grateful not to have smell-o-vision. Winner of four awards at Cannes and two at Sundance, including cinematography, among others so far, this is definitely one to see.

Quvenzhané (pronounced kwa-VEN-zhen-ay in one ad, her nickname is Nazie but I don't know how to say that) Wallis was five when she auditioned, even though the filmmakers requested six and older (she's eight now, in the fourth grade in Houma, Louisiana, southwest of New Orleans) and she blew everyone away with her strength and resolve, just like her character Hushpuppy (see this clip of her with Jay Leno). More than half the cast is from the bayou country--see the imdb trivia for other fascinating nuggets with no spoilers. "Katrina" is never uttered, but "the storm" comes. The prehistoric beasts of the title are called aurochs (OR-uks) but the ones in the movie, which required a big special effects team, look more like super-sized boars.

Director/co-writer/co-composer Benh Zeitlin makes his feature debut with this picture and, wow, is it strong. Co-writer Lucy Alibar wrote the play on which the movie is based and she has a cameo.

Dan Romer is the other composer of the outstanding music, and you can listen to clips on the amazon page (it's also available in iTunes) and two whole tracks (one, two) are on youtube so far. I expect more will be posted shortly.

The only bad news is that this movie was shot mostly with handheld cameras and it gave me motion-picture-motion-sickness (MPMS--my running list is here). If you, too, are sensitive to this, sit in the very last row and look down or at the wall from time to time. I don't want to advise anyone to wait for video,  though, because it's so good and likely to earn a bunch more nominations and awards.