When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

“There's a special circle in hell for insurance companies,” says one of the many interviewees in Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke, a scathing indictment of the botched governmental response in the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, a Category 5 storm that nearly blew New Orleans off the face of the earth, while also wreaking havoc in other Gulf states. More even-tempered than one might expect from controversial director Lee, this viscerally powerful film is presented in four parts, beginning with the official (though somewhat late) notice of mandatory evacuation given to the people of New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin (after he reportedly checked with the business community), followed by the disastrously slow state and federal response (one interviewee singles out President Bush as the “type who gives ‘C' students a bad name”) as people huddled for days under steadily deteriorating conditions in the Superdome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The “solutions” were nearly as awful, as predominantly black families were shuttled across the U.S. (initially called “refugees” by the news media—although one interviewee here rightfully asks, “did the storm blow away our citizenship?”), promises of FEMA trailers for the newly homeless went unfulfilled for months, and insurance companies advanced myriad loophole reasons why they couldn't honor people's claims. Combining familiar but still harrowing footage--of the storm, the damage, the lines of displaced people, and the floating bodies—with interviews of Nagin, Governor Kathleen Blanco, musicians Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard, and numerous residents (and former residents) of New Orleans, When the Levees Broke is a justifiably angry requiem—leavened with moments of heroism, determination, and hope—that may well become the defining audiovisual document of a horrendous catastrophe that was as much human as it was natural. DVD extras include audio commentary by Lee, as well as a bonus disc containing “New Movement—Act V,” a 108-minute addendum with additional interview footage, and an eight-minute behind-the-scenes musical photo montage. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)