This is Remi's!! Beasts of the southern wild

Film Club Event: Beasts of the Southern Wild

Under no circumstances should anyone with a soft heart be allowed to view this film. It will make you cry. Just say no. I can’t even write a summary of the plot without getting emotional. The film was set in a town known as the ‘Bathtub’ which is completely cut off from the rest of civilization by a levee. The film is narrated and viewed through the perspective of a six year old girl named Hushpuppy. We learn early on that she lives without a mother, and that her father is ill. As a dangerous storm approaches town, many take shelter or leave. Hushpuppy, along with her father and several townspeople decide to wait it out, and choose instead to spend the night in their own homes. When the morning comes, everything is flooded. Using a makeshift raft, the girl and her father make their way through the submerged town, searching for survivors. Fortunately, everyone they seemed to have decided to stay with made it through the storm, and for several weeks eight or nine people are forced to take refuge within one neighbor’s small floating house. Finding food is easy at first, but as the salt water dissolves and kills the freshwater inhabitance of ‘Bathtub’, the men of the group are forced to blow up a section of the levee in order to bring down the water level. Shortly thereafter, the small group is found by an emergency rescue team and forced (with actual force) to evacuate to a hospital within the levee. Doctors speak with the father the next day about test results and after he helps the

people of ‘Bathtub’ escape from the hospital, it is revealed that he is dying. Growing weaker every hour, the group somehow manages to escape back to their town (the water has drained at this point, and everyone returns to their respective soaked home. After Hushpuppy witnesses her father’s passing, she has his body placed in the makeshift raft and sets it adrift as she lights it on fire Viking funeral style.

This film is a very emotional one. Since scenes occur from the perspective of a six year old, there is an innocent truth about the script that sufficiently transports the viewer back to when they were six.  This film enables us to grasp, even for a moment, what it feels to be innocent, confident, and curious about the world. I, for one, would give anything to feel that way all day every day.