Trouble the Water, a documentary about Hurricane Katrina fashioned partly from footage shot inside New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward before, during and after the storm, is enraging and inspiring. It boasts the miraculous quality of finding a letter in a bottle and discovering that its authors are alive.
Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband, Scott, longtime residents of the 9th Ward, found themselves facing disaster on their own after Mayor Ray Nagin put evacuation orders into effect without providing sufficient transportation or information to citizens who lacked cars. Roberts decided she would document her plight on a camcorder she bought for $20 on the street. She recorded indelible images of the catastrophe that destroyed her neighborhood.
Kimberly and Scott, up to that point, were not solid citizens - she admits that she was a drug dealer. But in the course of this movie, they demonstrate that they are tremendous neighbors and gifted human beings. The movie filters events through their sensibilities; it's a tribute to these empathetic people that there's nothing matter-of-fact about any of the carnage. We see Kimberly try to warn an uncle who is spaced-out on drugs or alcohol that disaster is coming; after the waters subside, she finds his body.
