HBO documentary: seeing Katrina from ground zero
Trouble the Water, an Oscar-nominated 2008 documentary that tells the story of Hurricane Katrina from within the eye of the storm, has been shown at festivals and in theaters during the last year. But it gets its TV premiere Thursday night at 8:30 on HBO, and it will likely reach more viewers in one night on the premium pay channel than it did in all previous festival and theatrical showings.
And that's a good thing, because this is a great story told with passion not just about an epic storm, but about a country and a government that didn't have hardly any compassion for many of its victims.
It's inevitable that any documentary about Katrina is going to be compared to Spike Lee's towering 2005 film, When the Levees Broke, so let me quickly say Trouble the Waters does not have its elegiac lyricism or sense of poetry that Lee's does. But it does have something that Lee's film doesn't have -- eyewitness, home-movie footage of the storm arriving and a family fighting for its life -- and that is what makes the film such a special social document.
The home movie footage -- shot by an aspiring rap artist, Kimberly Rivers Roberts, who lived with her husband, Scott, in the lower ninth ward -- is astonishing. Shot the days before, during and immediately after the storm hit, it takes up only about 15 minutes of the overall documentary directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. But it includes images you will never forget.
Capturing a story like this from such a central vantage point is the ideal of citizen journalism. Lessin and Deal then contextualize it in such a way as to make it citizen-history.
Either way, it is gut grabbing stuff.
Watching Roberts, her husband, and others sitting among the rafters in the attic of their home as the waters rise is harrowing. Listening to their matter-of-fact discussion of life-and-death issues is amazing.
"What are we going to do about the dogs?" one of them asks of their two dogs up there is the attic with them.
The other says the dogs' deaths seem inevitable.
Roberts is an indomitable spirit, and that is what ultimately carries and uplifts the film. But be prepared to be angry all over again about George W. Bush and his friend, former FEMA director Michael ("Good job, Brownie") Brown, and all the public trust that was betrayed in the wake of that horrible storm.
(Above: A Zeitgeist Films photo of Kim Rivers Roberts and Scott Roberts)
Comments
This is a wonderful film. Whereas When the Levees Broke was a film specifically about Katrina and the governmental failure to take care of the people affected by it, Trouble the Water is the story of Kimberly Roberts and her family and friends -- and how they dealt with the storm and its aftermath. A different focus.
Kim is indeed "an indomitable spirit," a great description for her -- and that makes watching this film a positive experience. You talk about feeling angry all over again, but that's really a small piece of it. Mostly I was just amazed to watch this woman take on everything that nature and society could throw at her, and win one small victory at a time.
I hope people don't say, "eh, I don't want to watch another Katrina film." Because they will see parts of Katrina they have never seen before -- being trapped in the attic with the water rising -- and they will see much, much more. I loved it.
Hi, Thanks for the comment. You are so right about people seeing aspects of Katrina that they have not seen. And thanks for encouraging folks to watch it. Z
Posted by: jds | April 22, 2009 10:30 AM
Wow, I hope I can get a chance to watch this film. I have never seen another documentary on Katrina so I would be going in with an open mind. Sounds like a good film for my teenage daughters to watch. I do hope that we have learned from the Katrina experience.
Sherry Tellitocci
Posted by: Sherry Tellitocci | April 22, 2009 2:01 PM
What a powerful film!! Just like "When The Levees Broke" this film showed the power of life in the face of death. Amazingly life-affirming under the most dire conditions imaginable. The Roberts family had been to hell and back and still in the midst of that, did their best to lift people up and try to save them(and themselves) literally in the belly of the beast. True American heroes in my eyes but they won't get the credit that they deserve. In their darkest hours they chose life instead of cowardly death. They stood up when America let them down. Blog that!!!!
Posted by: Mack | April 24, 2009 1:26 AM
I cried, and cried, when i heard the women calling 911 for help. She could not break throught her attic to get out. They said to her "officers are not coming out? she told them the attic was flooding? was she gonna die? they answer yes! I was appalled and saddened and I couldnt believe anyone would say that to someone in such terrible circumstances. I cannot believe this is America.....
Hello Marva, Thanks for sharing this testimony to the power of the film. Z
Posted by: marva quash | April 24, 2009 7:43 PM