There has been no shortage of filmed analysis of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath during the last three years. And much of it has been quite good, particularly Spike Lee’s sprawling (and riveting) four-hour documentary, When the Levees Broke, which also screened at SILVERDOCS this year. But one doesn’t really realize what’s missing from these other films until watching Trouble the Water, Carl Deal and Tia Lessin’s take on the material, which is both harrowing and inspiring. And while it’s Deal and Lessin’s film, the special ingredient isn’t something that the pair brought to the project themselves: footage from the ground and on the rising waters from the heart of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward in the midst of the catastrophe.
For the reels and reels of news footage and professional camera crews roving the streets and newly formed canals of the city in the days following the storm, the most affecting footage comes from an amateur camcorder bought on the street for twenty bucks. The purchaser, Kimberly Roberts, a former small-time drug dealer and aspiring rapper, simply wanted to document family events, but when the storm started to roll in, and she and most of her neighbors were too poor to leave, she had an inkling that the gathering storm might have some historical significance. And, as she said at the Q&A after Friday night’s screening, she figured maybe she could sell the footage to the news for some cash after the fact. What she didn’t figure on was that she’d end up filming the storm from the perspective of those hit hardest by it at their most desperate moments.
The result is the sort of visceral gut-punch that a movie like Cloverfield aspires to, only without the wealthy and polished youths documenting the disaster. Roberts interviews neighbors as clouds grow thicker in the skies, establishing characters that we’ll meet again as circumstances grow dire. The streets begin to fill up with water. It reaches over the tops of stop signs and threatens the residents effectively trapped in her attic after she took in people from the surrounding homes. Roberts continues to film as they float across the street on a heavy bag being controlled by a resident of the taller building next door. Then they run through their meager food supply and eventually having to make an escape to higher ground.
