Spike Lee's documentary When The Levees Broke is a masterfully empathetic look at the events leading up to and especially following the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Crystal clear stock footage meets grainy home video and shots of the aftermath and allows the informative movie to proceed effortlessly, though not without pulling the viewer along in the flood waters.
Lee's mark as a filmmaker is all over the work. There is no way to identify Bob Dylan: No Direction Home as a Martin Scorsese film, but Lee manages to combine several of his trademarked cinematography cornerstones with straightforward interviewing techniques to craft a distinct Spike Lee Joint. Perhaps Jean-Luc Godard put a similar unique stamp on Sympathy for the Devil, but I have yet to see that work.
The interviews with the survivors are informative and heartbreaking. Their emotions are incredibly real and all are entirely critical of President Bush and the U.S. government's failure to supply immediate aid. However, two frequent interviewees (Phyllis Montana LeBlanc, apparently Lee's preferred heroine, and Dr. Michael Eric Dyson) and their annoying tones to take away from their respective accounts' power. Their anger is understandable, but incessant sarcasm is not the way to gain an empathizing audience. All of the other contributors present eloquent tales of suffering and successfully convey their ire, including pompous celebrities like Kanye West. Rev. Al Sharpton is one of the most outspoken people in the U.S., yet his comments (still full of rage and vengeance) are some of the clearest and effective of the entire film.
The most haunting moment by far is of longtime Lee collaborator Terence Blanchard walking down the streets of destruction playing "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" on his trumpet. Blanchard's own original music composed especially for the documentary ranks among his best work.
In addition to Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation, Lee's film is as important a view as An Inconvenient Truth. Many major fixable issues are currently prominent in our nation due to ignorance and a lack of conscience and it is a somewhat unfortunate sign of the times that it takes Hollywood filmmakers' voices to beseech the masses. I am glad that people with such an audience use their gifts to raise awareness, but respective situations should never come to that.