By GABRIELLE SAUPE – Sports Editor
In Beasts of the Southern Wild, released on June 27, directed by Benh Zeitlin, you will find a place affectionately called the “Bathtub,” which is a tiny strip of land on the Louisiana Gulf Coast on the wrong side of the levee. The Bathtub is an ethnically mixed community of decadent survivors who live a life with minimal rules or structure. A devastating storm hits the Bathtub, ruining their man-made, lopsided community.
The film focusses on Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), a motherless young girl who lives with her father Wink (Dwight Henry). Wink believes in self-sufficiency and independence, remaining distant from the coddled, cushioned lives of outsiders (people on the other side of the levee). The Bathtub is held together primarily by the spirit of its community and the ability to rely on one an other to maintain their scrap metal and wooden plank shacks.
“The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece… the whole universe will get busted,” Hushpuppie said in a line during the movie.
The film showcases the abnormality of life in the Bathtub, which engages the viewer allowing them to fully feel the emotion and experience what the people of the Bathtub went through and the life they lived.
