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Film review

The sounds of survival

By STEVE PERSALL
Published February 8, 2007

Hurricane on the Bayou (NR, probably G) (45 min.) - IMAX filmmaker Greg MacGillivray completed production on a documentary about Louisiana's eroding coastline a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina struck. Ecological warnings became tragic realities, and MacGillivray returned to reshape his movie, not with an I-told-you-so attitude but with reverence and toe-tapping rhythms, the soundtrack of resurrection.

As such, Hurricane on the Bayou barely reaches the academic standards of IMAX museum pieces. This is as music-intensive as the average concert film, with singer Tab Benoit, accordionist Chubby Carrier Jr., composer Allen Toussaint and teenage fiddle prodigy Amanda Shaw speaking more than scientists and environmentalists. Each lost something personal in the storm, and is now recovering it through music.

There are certainly angrier, more incisive chronicles of Katrina's destruction and Gulf Coast rescue and recovery efforts, notably Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke. Environmental factors contributing to the storm and damage were explored more deeply in An Inconvenient Truth. MacGillivray's film focuses upon resiliency among Louisiana residents, not surprising since it is backed by the state's tourism board.

The hesitancy to blame anyone is evident when narrator Meryl Streep says help "came too late for some." Is she referring to victims who died, or survivors who didn't appreciate state and federal agencies dragging their feet? The statement's vagueness, coupled with the overall optimism of MacGillivray's film, suggests the former.

There's a disingenuous air to computer-generated shots of collapsing structures and Superdome roof panels flying into the camera lens. Such manufactured action is more at home in disaster flicks than documentaries. They exist solely to fill the huge screen with something besides people talking and news footage that can't be blown up to IMAX standards.

However, the music deserves the thousands of watts pumping through IMAX surround sound. Hurricane on the Bayou actually earns a tear or two when images match the infectious sounds, culminating in Marva Wright's rafter-shaking hymn to hopefulness. Lessons learned in MacGillivray's movie can't be quantified on brainy quizzes; they travel through ears, heading straight toward hearts. B+

Steve Persall, Times film critic

[Last modified February 7, 2007, 08:56:12]