WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

To be as objective as possible and keep my subjective-ness removed, if possible.  Beasts of the Southern Wild is a beautifully filmed, and well executed film.  It is not my taste – I would much prefer to watch a romantic comedy where someone is in love and out of love and there’s something funny and lighthearted and a happy ending.  This is not that movie.

Hushpuppy and her father live in the ‘Bathtub’ of Southern Louisiana, where life is hard and the people who live there are die-hards.  They are born there, raised there, and die there, and it will take something terrible to get them to leave – and even then, a lot of them won’t go.  This is somewhat realistic for a place like the Bathtub in real life – however, in the midst of a terrible storm (it is assumed it is a hurricane without actually being told that it is), it is time to go.

Hushpuppy’s father,  who seems to be a relatively small minded, wife-beater, is raising this poor little girl on his own (and mostly she is raising herself) is adamant they will stay, and so they do.  They stick out the terrible storm and get stuck in the ‘Bathtub’ with the other folks who refused to leave.  They have none of the things they need to survive, and it is all too real to watch them struggle the same way as the people who in real life refuse to leave before a storm and then get trapped and are in trouble.

We also learn after the storm that Hushpuppy’s father is very sick, another thing to make this little girl’s life harder.  The only redeeming qualities of this film (to me) are the beautiful cinematography and the fact that there is a semi-happy ending.  I would actually recommend going to see it – if only for the beautiful camera work and the fact that it did win the grand jury prize at Sundance.