'Trouble the Water' review

Documentary puts a human face on Hurricane Katrina

By Geoff Berkshire

Posted August 21, 2008

Metromix

An intimate account of what it was like to experience and survive Hurricane Katrina as seen through the home video camera footage of aspiring rapper Kimberly Rivers Roberts. After the storm, Roberts and her husband Scott return to their neighborhood and survey the damage with a professional documentary crew.

Big question: Can a first person point of view expand upon an event that was fairly well documented as it unfolded?

Catch it: Although far from the all-encompassing Katrina portrait that Spike Lee drew with "When the Levees Broke," "Trouble the Water" merits attention as a harrowing glimpse into the eye of the storm and an inspiring testimony of survival. It's also a potent reminder of the mistakes that occurred at a national level. Roberts' neighbor's claim that "If you don't have money and you don't have status, you don't have a government," takes on even more weight when you see the proof first hand.

Skip it: If you thought the shaky cam in "The Blair Witch Project" or "Cloverfield" was bad. But give Roberts some credit, she only bought her camera two weeks before the storm and she was in the middle of a hurricane!

Bottom line: There's no sugar-coating what happened in New Orleans and "Trouble the Water" doesn't skimp on the rough stuff. But the film doesn't pretend to be an action-packed true life thriller (Roberts' footage during the storm itself is fairly limited) or wallow in the misery of a hopeless situation. It simply shows things as they were before, during and after a natural disaster. It's a historical document with a human center.