When the Levees Broke (2006)
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97% of critics liked it
(29 reviews) -
95% of users liked it
(5,558 ratings)
Academy Award-nominated director Spike Lee (the guiding force behind the critically acclaimed documentary 4 Little Girls) turns to nonfiction filmmaking once again with the heart-wrenching marathon work When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, produced by Lee's Forty Acres and a Mule… More Academy Award-nominated director Spike Lee (the guiding force behind the critically acclaimed documentary 4 Little Girls) turns to nonfiction filmmaking once again with the heart-wrenching marathon work When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, produced by Lee's Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks and originally screened on HBO. In four "acts" of approximately one hour each, Lee examines the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the late summer of 2005 and the incorrigible response to the catastrophe from U.S. government agencies. The filmmaker then evaluates the overwhelming measures that must be taken for the area to rebound and recover fully, demonstrating time and again that this seems an unlikely prospect in the immediate future. Act One covers the events that immediately preceded Katrina's onslaught of horror, with an in-depth exploration of the Bush administration and FEMA's joint failures to understand the potential calamity at hand. Lee picks up this subtopic again and makes it the central focus of Act Two, which expands into a dissection of the government agencies' failure to respond to the crisis with adequate measures; time and again, the director fills his frame, in this segment, with images and indications of naked human indifference. Act Three plunges headfirst into the toll taken by the hurricane on the lives of Louisiana residents, with protracted glimpses of the destruction wrought. And finally, the film wraps with Act Four, where Lee conducts more recent interviews with experts who question the soundness of the New Orleans levee system in the face of future catastrophes. A number of celebrities and public figures also appear on camera to provide commentary throughout the work, including New Orleans mayor Roy Nagin, actor, singer and social activist Harry Belafonte, and actor Sean Penn. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Directed By
- Spike Lee
- Genres
- Documentary, Television, Special Interest
Unrated,
- In Theaters
- Aug 16, 2006 Wide
Critic Reviews
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, Globe and Mail
The same didactic instincts that sometimes mar Lee's fictional filmmaking serve him well as a documentarian and eulogist.
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David Denby, New Yorker
Surely the most magnificent and large-souled record of a great American tragedy ever put on film.
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Stephen Holden, New York Times
What breaks your heart is the film's accumulated firsthand stories of New Orleans residents who lost everything in the flood after Hurricane Katrina, and the dismaying conclusion that a year after the disaster, the broken city has been largely abandoned.
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Paul Brownfield, Los Angeles Times
When the Levees Broke is like the New Orleans jazz funeral -- a dirge on the way to the cemetery, an up-tempo parade in the deceased's honor on the bittersweet walk back home.
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Charlie McCollum, San Jose Mercury News
Do the flaws diminish Levees? To a degree. But the story Lee tells is so powerful, so important, that the lapses aren't a reason not to pay heed to what this passionate film has to say.
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