Beasts of the Southern What?

Misleading frames of Beasts of a Southern Wild would make an unknowing person believe the movie was more magical and set in a fictional world. While there are giant wilderbeasts for some reason coming in and out of this movie, the film is about impoverished natives of the New Orleans region prior to a hurricane, assumably Katrina. The film’s protagonist is a young, black girl named Hushpuppy, played by a precocious Quvenzhané Wallis. Quvenzhané is the youngest actress to ever be nominated and deserves the recognition. Going into the film, I was expecting the movie to be more of a mythological based film that played out the differences between that world and harshness of the modern day New Orleanseque region. But there was very little of that. The symbolism of these beasts in the film went over my head. I was unsure of what their purpose was to the film and the story. Either I am too simple-minded to get it (which is a very possible reason) or the film misplayed a card that was supposed to bring more meaning to the film. I thought by the end of the movie I was looking at a pile of loose strings that had the appearance of a beautiful, artistic movie, but left me with more unanswered questions and a feeling of deep unsatisfaction.