The promotion for Trouble the Water says the documentary is, "not about a hurricane. It's about America." Kimberly Rivers Roberts filmed Hurricane Katrina barreling down on the 9th Ward with her personal video camera. The film shows what it feels like to be trapped by a massive storm, isolated in your own city, and abandoned by the government. Roberts points her camera at her neighbors and family, including her husband Scott who figures prominently throughout the film. Through the lens of this first-time filmmaker we see water rising past porches. We see the result of broken levees, as Kimberly's brother uses a punching bag to rescue neighbors from disappearing homes.
Trouble the Water is difficult to watch. It is, of course, hard to see an entire city being destroyed, and Katrina?s impact on New Orleans? poorest residents is devastatingly comprehensive. What makes the viewer cringe most, however, is not the storm itself. It is the countless things people must endure after Katrina. Kimberly and Scott slowly move north and eventually arrive in Memphis to attempt a new start. Returning to the 9th Ward weeks after the storm, they find most of the homes in their neighborhood have yet to be searched. In contrast, the city's center has been cleaned and reopened for business, a surreal island of tourist bliss surrounded by a war zone.
Beginning the day before Katrina made landfall, Kimberly's confident and sometimes anxious voice narrates the coming apocalypse. Through her lens and voice, we experience regular moments of bravery and kindness among the government-forsaken citizens of the 9th Ward. Most stunning is the filmmaker's own indefatigable compassion towards her fellow survivors. At a time when those with the resources to leave thought mostly of escaping, Kimberly and her fellow travelers exhibit a raw and authentic kindness to those left behind. For those of us who watched Katrina unfold from a distance, Trouble the Water offers an unpolished look at both the injustice and the grace that could only be seen through the eyes of a survivor.
Trouble the Water (Trailer)
