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îhl UJortlatth (Obserner
Easter Jazz
A Jazz-Gospel Worship Service
in celebration of Easter
will be held at A u g u sta n a L u th era n C h u rch
The location is 2710 NE 14th Ave., Portland
on Sunday, M arch 31 at 6 pm.
Ron Steen, Kevin Deitz and George Mitchell will be
performing with Marilyn Keller on vocals.
For more, call 503 288-6174.
All are welcome to this free event.
_ »FJ^Ä4/izT/.
March 20. 2013
‘B eastsof the Southern W ild’
me oacKwater Louisiana nature of heroic human striving.
bayou they call home).
Make no mistake; there is real
Hers is not the annoyingly pre­ wisdom in Hushpuppy's narration.
her relationship to the universe. cocious arrogance of many movie "When it all goes quiet behind my
Many parents whose neglect of their children, but an inspiring, though eyes," she declares, "I see every­
children would be considered far childlike, sense of her life's purpose thing that made me flying around in
less egregious than Wink's fail to and meaning. When she talks of her invisible pieces. I see that I'm a little
accord such riches to their children. community's struggles after a deci­ piece of a big, big universe." We
Hushpuppy narrates her story mating Katrina-like storm, she notes should all live with this kind of wild
with an abiding sense of its signifi­ their recognition that "it wasn’t no clarity and determination.
cance, referring to the lessons she is time to sit around crying like a bunch
There are a couple more things
learning that will inform the "scien­ of babies." And facing recurrent worth noting. This film contains an
tists of the future" and how "in a dangers, she notes that "me and my ideal of beauty that resides in a
million years, when kids go to school, daddy, we stay right here. We's who universe more rustic and more
they gonna know that once there the earth is for." Hushpuppy has evolved than the Hollywood ideal.
was a Hushpuppy who lived with learn ed from W ink to expect Its women, including the wise herb­
her daddy in The Bathtub" (their struggle, and both are going about alist and a group of prostitutes who
equipping her to embrace it.
emerge to shelter Hushpuppy and
Hushpuppy personifies the chal­ her friends as they are longing for
lenges of her life in the form of maternal comfort, shimmer with re­
Aurochs, huge and mythical crea­ freshing earthiness and warmth. The
tures depicted in cave drawings earth is depicted not with airbrushed
which she believes are coming with smoothness, but as a teeming mass
the melting of polar icecaps.
of savage and glorious vitality.
I love that the film balances gritty
Finally, without glamorizing or
realism with a form of mythical fetishizing their poverty, the film
storytelling that captures the im­ captures something of the beauty
port of the community’s struggle to and largess of the disenfranchised,
survive. The Aurochs seem to sig­ and depicts how efforts of outsid­
nify the dangers that confront not ers to help them may end up doing
just Hushpuppy and her commu­ actual harm.
nity, but all hum anity-the encroach­
Never has a film captured so well
ment of modernity, or environmen­ the biblical sense that the poor and
tal disaster, or economic devasta­ marginalized have a kind of wisdom
tion; the loss of health and indepen­ that the world desperately needs, a
dence.
wisdom that should be accorded
As Hushpuppy recognizes, "The reverence.
whole universe depends on every­
B u o y e d by jo y o u s m u sic
thing fitting together just right. If grounded in the bayou and by
one piece busts, even the smallest cinem atography that finds beauty
piece, the entire universe will get even in squalor, first-tim e director
busted." And she has learned to Benh Zeitlin and his co-writer Lucy
focus her fierceness on doing what A libarhave delivered here a piece
she can to maintain her part of that o f film m aking that we as a culture
jssential balance. So when the film may need to evolve a bit to recog­
mlminates in an actual face-off be- nize.
ween Hushpuppy and the Au-
I felt my own soul expand in the
ochs, the impact is profound, as act of watching and absorbing it.
;he registers something of the true And that's the stuff of greatness.
c o n t i n u e d f r o m page 11
n a m e io r
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