The Tree of Life and Creatures of the Southern Wild - indie nature

The most obvious similarity between these films is their use of close up, shallow depth of field, nice contrast, indie-movie shots of nature. Mmmm grass head's bobbing in the summer breeze, indie gold, cue the sound of crickets chirpping, nicccce.

In both cases there is an intimate sounding voice over behind these artie shots, in the Tree of Life - by the main character and his mother, in Beasts of the Southern Wild - by the nine year old Oscar nominee Quvenzhane Wallis.

I happily mock, but I quite enjoyed these movies, even if the whispering voice over in Tree of Life made me want to submerge my head in a vat of grind-core metal to cleanse me of the cringe inducing emotional sincerity.

Tree, stars Sean Penn - lover of all thing liberal, scourge of the Tea-Party - as an adult but focuses more on his character's childhood. There is inspiration from Stanley Kubricks 2001:A Space Odyssey in the visuals in space and the bizarre final scene surrounded by characters from his past as he walks around a doorway on a beach. But I digress. His childhood depicts a typical, if slightly nasty kid as the son of a Christian mother earth figure (that bird from Zero Dark Thirty) and a crew-cut, verging on violent, authoritarian dad (Brad Pitt).

A little way in there is a biopic montage of the universe from start to present. I must be a sucker for epic slow moving space visuals set to melancholic music because this combo has floored me before (the Fountain, Sunshine). One shot in particular shows the galaxy with some operatic singing which is so emphatic it's almost ridiculous, but it walks that fine line right into your guts and presses your awe buttons (just like when I saw a double rainbow).

Further in, the montage depicts the course of life evolving to the present day, and there is a shot of the most convincing CG dinosaur I've ever seen lying on beach. There's some other good SFX bits but this stood out.The resulting tone following this is one of significance, you're trying to find significance in every little thing after this, which is necessary because near fuck all happens.

In Beasts nature appears as an inescapable force. The surreal setting in a Louisiana town on the brink of being washed away is made further abstract because it's all from the point of view of a little girl, the protagonist, Hushpuppy. Though without a traditional education she has learned about global warming and the ice age. Like with any child all the world's events seem linked to her. In this way she feels responsible for her father's heart condition after hitting him and also for the following storm. She hides under a box as the storm worsens and visualises polar ice braking away as a result of her actions, with each role of thunder a new iceberg falling to birth.

She is closely linked to the living world. She understands that the animals that live around her are for eating. Her father pushes this truth of life on Hushpuppy e.g. trying to get her to kill a fish by punching it in the face.

In both films, nature provides the catalyst for introspection. Beasts is a refreshing look at that sort of thing because is done from the point of view of a child, Tree kind of does this in that a lot of the film is set in childhood but because we know he's grown up to be a hot shot architect it makes the past a sort of fuzzy nostalgia where as Beasts has immediacy, she lives in the wild with the beasts and exists along side death everyday.

Apart from the naval gazing aspects of these films, which I'm not slagging off cos it does them well, Beasts does display an awareness of our fragility in the face of nature.

The situation faced by the residents of The Bathtub is faced by millions. The encroachment of the sea and poisoning of the land by salt are real and terrifying issues. Hushpuppy's sense of empowerment and responsibility is naive but means that in the end she actually gets things done, which is more than can be said for many adults.

Ok. Homework, go and stare at some nature until you start to get nostalgic. Imagine the indie close up as you stare out over the sea and practice getting the right face... more pensive... more intense... now you've got it!