Beasts of the Southern Wild Today at 3:15 I embarked on a journey to Louisiana to a place called “The Bath Tub”. The Bath Tub is a place that seems like a cross between Haiti and swamp like Appalachia in my imagination. Despite the horrific conditions of mud, critters, filth and ‘back-assness’ there is a true sense of community, togetherness and , (I cant believe I am going to say this) charm. There are black folks and white folks with no real sense of hierarchy or judgment. These folks are together in a comradely of alternative lifestyle that seems like they are sadly stuck in their supreme poverty, but as the film plays out shows that life in the “bath Tub” proves to be far more complex then a story about poverty and different people. The 6 year old child called “Hushpuppy” lives in her own shanty like house on stilts while her dirty older dad lives in his own quarters. The mother only exists in this child’s vivid imagination. There is a pig, and chickens and a little dirty dog. Hushpuppy has wild hair, androgynous cloths and a face that is scrumptious. Sadly, I could not help thinking about ring-worm when I first saw her on the big screen. Her dad tossed a chicken on the makeshift grill and then it was ‘feeding time’. Everyone ate, the pig and dog and little 6 year old girl. The chicken actually looked kind of yummy, in spite of the filth, and lack of utensils. The girl called Hushpuppy shows us her life, though her harsh reality and vivid imagination. We learn how to catch a catfish and how to live off the land of plenty of crawdads, crabs, chicken and liquor. Then, Hushpuppy’s dad disappears… after a while he returns in a hospital gown. One might wonder how he is just walking around in a hospital gown. It is a scary truth that Hushpuppy’s already turbulent life, may just have taken a turn for the worse. More Crazy stuff happens. The girl’s dad is seemingly very sick. So… to add to his oddness, he looks like he is terminally ill and the mother is nowhere in true sight, the fantasy life is compounded by the stories she is told. For example: her father tells a story that when she was born her mother swam off to “the lights” because her heart was going to explode. At this point in the film , my heart is about to explode. We meet the female “teacher” who has wild ideas of the world, ice age, and creatures from the cave man times. The cave man beasts follow Hushpuppy in her adventuresome life through out the film. Then the BIG storm hits! It is a big deal and very threatening. The people of this community are going to stick out the storm even if they could all die. Some people do not make it but , thankfully others are alive and resiliently well. The aftermath of the storm is horrific. (It must be Katrina and its Louisiana nightmare.) This microcosm sits below the levees before they ‘broke’ and flooded the rest of the land swelling their land to fullest capacity. Get it the ‘Bath Tub’ effect… Full of scum, death and lots of muddy dying water. The miss fit land of the Bath Tub people pull together to wait out the water. Together with their children, old people and younger haggard people they ‘pool’ their resources. They were a tight community that had each others backs no matter what. I could see their freedom. Their laughter and comradely stirred a queer kind of envy in me. They had it hard and bad, I could not take a weekend at the ‘bath tub’, but putting my values aside, there was a beauty in the whole of it. The film is of loss and resilience and showed the power people can have to survive, and pull together under extreme hardship. The narrator and hero, Hush Puppy steals the screen. This little actor is nothing short of an anomaly in the world of glitter. She took her time, did not over act and she was believable in every sense. I’ll say it again…Scrumptious! Sadly to the quick naked eye, I could not help thinking that any person from mainstreet USA would only see a dirty, filthy, backward, swamp kid. She and her community demonstrate that life is complicated. The way we all choose to live our lives can be fuel for judgment by others for many many reasons. The Beasts of the Southern Wild was heart wrenching, powerful and thought provoking in every sense. Poetry in motion! Maybe we should be less critical of the lives of others and start believing that we all have a common thread of humanness. This film portrayed a (at times) head shaking, shocking, life style of poverty and hardship and child abuse/neglect (in the traditional sense) but, it also presented a community devoted to its people, while they live (and die) by their certain way of life. In America we live under the guise (our declaration of independence) of the concept that all people have an inalienable right. That is; of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness… this film explores those values and much much more.