I thought Spike Lee’s “When the Levees Broke” was pretty much the last word on the national tragedy and disgrace that followed Hurricane Katrina’s assault on New Orleans. Maybe not.
“Trouble the Water,” a new documentary on the same subject, begins unpromisingly, with familiar TV news footage and some extremely shaky camcorder shots of the winds the day before the hurricane’s arrival. I’m no cameraman, and I shot better stuff in a 1992 storm that forced my family’s evacuation from the Jersey Shore.
But like Katrina, this documentary – cleverly built around footage shot by a black couple in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward – slowly builds power to devastating effect.
Kimberly Roberts, an aspiring rapper whose mother died of AIDS, and her husband, Scott, who take turns behind the camera, are hardly model citizens. Both have dabbled in drugs and crime, and the good-natured Scott sports a facial scar inflicted by his more dominant wife.
The Scotts stay put, apparently out of economic necessity – no government agency made an effort to evacuate the less well-off. They shoot some astounding footage of the waters rising around their modest home, even as police dispatchers tell them no rescue crews are available and they are forced to seek shelter in their attic.
They finally make it out of town in a panel truck loaded with neighbors – after being turned away at gunpoint from a decommissioned Army base with hundreds of free beds.
A return three weeks later – at this point, the Scotts have hooked up with documentary filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, former associates of Michael Moore – is even more chilling.
The Scotts discover a relative’s body in their devastated neighborhood and learn that Kimberly’s grandmother died in a hospital where patients weren’t evacuated – although it will take weeks to get the body released.
Even as they fight their way through the bureaucratic nightmare that is FEMA – and hear countless empty promises from politicians – the Scotts demonstrate moral strength, resilience and forgiveness that compels them back to their hometown after an unsuccessful attempt to resettle in Memphis.
As “Trouble the Water” points out, most of New Orleans’ black residents have yet to return to a city that turned its back on them. When Kimberly sings, she gives voice to their pain.
TROUBLE THE WATER
First-rate documentary.
Running time: 93 minutes. Not rated (profanity, disturbing images). At the IFC Center and the Faison Firehouse Theater.