Review of When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

In some respects, New Orleans, a city built eight feet below sea level in the hear of hurricane country, is a natural disaster waiting to happen. But you might think, given its location in the richest country in the world, that there would at least be top-class flood defences, a solid evacuation plan and a firm commitment to rebuild. But in America, the politics of class and race are never far away, and New Orleans is poor and black. Director Spike Lee has done a real service for his country by making this film which exposes the shocking story of hurricane Katrina, a superficially simple assembly of documentary footage and the sometimes contradictory but always diverting testament of literally dozens of people, some famous but most not, caught up in the disaster. It's hard to pick out the most terrible revelations: but starving victims were prevented at gunpoint from entering neighbouring counties, and the school system has all but collapsed in the aftermath of the disaster because of the decline in the city's tax base: these are things that just shouldn't happen in a supposedly rich and civilised country, and are accidents (if that word is not too kindly) of man, not of nature. The truth is stark and powerful: Katrina did more damage than those planes on 9/11, but its attack was not aimed (especially) at the rich and powerful; the different responses serve a dreadful indictment of the state of the American dream.