HIFF Review: Trouble the Water
Image courtesy Zeitgeist Films
Trouble the Water (2008)
United States, 90 minutes
Reviewer’s rating: Four stars
Review by Jason Genegabus
jason@starbulletin.com
When you watch disaster coverage on television, or read about it in the newspaper or online, it’s often difficult to truly understand the scope of what’s happened.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans in 2005, the rest of the country watched as millions were affected by broken levees, rising floodwaters and a government response that can only be described as pathetic at best. But while everyone else returned to relative normality a few days later, the people of Louisiana continued to struggle with the aftereffects.
That’s why it’s important to see “Trouble the Water,” the first-hand account of 9th Ward residents Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband, Scott Roberts.
Kim and Scott aren’t the typical interview subjects that might show up on the major news outlets. Both are admitted drug dealers; in the opening minutes of the film, Kim even captures a deal going down with her video camera.
This unfiltered glimpse of life in the 9th Ward is spooky, since the only ones left in the city are those who are too poor, sick or just plain wasted to run from Katrina. At first, everyone Kim trains her camera on appears to be in high spirits, boldly telling her they’re not worried about the devastation that was about to take place.
As she rides her bicycle around the neighborhood, viewers see dozens of people – young and old – sitting around, waiting for the storm to hit. By the time she returns to her own house, the tone of Kim’s voice has changed.
She’s scared.
When the next scene starts, it’s suddenly two weeks later. The Roberts have returned to New Orleans after surviving the storm.
Despite the jarring change and the obvious question (”What the heck just happened?”), viewers aren’t immediately told what happened to the couple. Instead, the movie interjects Kim’s first-hand footage from the storm, while concurrently following their journey back to the neighborhood to discover what happened to their house and those of their neighbors.
The journey is tragic, yet infuriating at the same time.
We see ghastly footage of Kim and her neighbors heading for an attic to escape the rising water. Clips of calls to 911 are played, as operators are unable to send help to people trapped inside their own homes.
There are moments where strangers become heroes, and moments when people we view as heroes (i.e. police, military and government representatives) become demons.
One of the best lines comes from Kim’s cousin in Tennessee, after she realizes her own family is having a difficult time dealing with Katrina’s aftermath:
“If you don’t have money, if you don’t have status, then you don’t have a government,” she said.
Even after the storm, when the Roberts try to make it back to New Orleans from Tennessee, their struggle isn’t over.
“Trouble the Water” explores the horror of Aug. 28, 2005, but it also illustrates the hurdles that the poor had to face long after the storm had passed.
“Trouble the Water” screens at 6:45 p.m. Thursday at Dole Cannery.
