February 16, 2009: Trouble the Water
Trouble the Water was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar for 2008. It is primarily about the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. It did not win the Oscar, which was pretty much guaranteed to go to the significantly superior Man on Wire.
Trouble the Water centres on a couple, Kim and Scott, who videotaped the lead-up to the hurricane, and were trapped in their attic throughout. They return to the area a couple of weeks later when the water levels have gone down, and they document the destruction in New Orleans. We then follow them in through several months as they eventually leave for Memphis to try and start over, and end up returning to the only place where they really feel comfortable, where they feel like they are home.
Kim turns out to be a singer (quite a talented one, once we eventually see her in action). They use music to capture their feelings of devastation, the title song for the film being performed by the leading lady, and they end up creating a record label once they return home several months after Katrina.
We are close witnesses to a complicated set of emotions, as our protagonists return shortly after the hurricane to witness the destruction and chaos. They simply cannot believe that this place which is so familiar to them can have changed so completely, and be so completely uninhabitable now. It’s difficult watching how people were ignored and officials were disorganized and unhelpful, most distressingly the staff at a local military base who refuse to let anyone on the property even though they have plenty of empty barracks which could provide safe and dry temporary housing for hundreds of people. While many of these people being refused were frankly kind of annoying, they still should have been properly cared for. People flee the state and try to re-establish themselves by staying temporarily with friends or relatives in far-flung areas, but it’s not realistic to expect everyone to simply uproot and try to settle in an unfamiliar city. The racial question, so commonly discussed by observers and pundits during the long aftermath of the event, is asked but never really addressed – the protagonists are black, and are keenly aware that their race and their lack of economic clout must be factors in the botched response to the disaster.
One of the most devastating scenes in the movie is an interview with a travel agent, who in her bright and airy office shows a videotape promoting New Orleans. Chillingly, she illustrates how the rest of the world and even the rest of America didn’t really care what happened in New Orleans, as long as the tourist area and everything there seemed to be untouched and unchanged. Even now, years later, many areas of New Orleans still aren’t habitable, and the remnants of houses destroyed by the hurricane or demolished since are still scattered around everywhere, often in the middle of neighbourhoods where some of the residents have returned and are trying to push on with their lives. But the French Quarter is up and running as it always was (largely due to this oldest part of the city having been built on a viable above-sea-level area, but that’s a whole other argument).
Harrowing though the scenes were, and tragic as the stories are, I didn’t find that this documentary really connected with me. The characters weren’t generally folks I could identify with individually, although I feel guilty citing that as a reason I had difficulty with the film, since the tragedy which befell the people of New Orleans transcends any personal connection. I had perhaps hoped for more of an overview rather than the personal stories, since larger-scale approaches tend to resonate better with me when watching documentaries.
Too real, or not real enough?
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