Philadelphia Weekly

Anyone who found themselves knocked flat by Spike Lee's massive, masterful documentary When the Levees Broke might incorrectly assume that all the i's have been dotted and t's have been crossed when it comes to chronicling the sick, sad tale of Hurricane Katrina. But while Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's Trouble the Water can't help but suffer a bit in comparison to Lee's opus, this remains a story worth telling again. And again and again until somebody finally takes heed.

Lessin and Deal wisely don't attempt to echo Spike's maximalist scope, instead focusing strictly on survivors Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott, who the filmmakers met in a Red Cross shelter shortly after the storm. The poverty-stricken couple, having no means of evacuation, attempted to ride out Katrina in their Lower Ninth Ward home. Luckily for all of us, Kimberly had a camcorder.

The astonishing first hour of Trouble the Water seamlessly segues from dismaying news reports to the Roberts' astonishing home movie footage. The rest of the gaps are filled on 16 mm film, when the couple returns to their demolished neighborhood two weeks later, walking us through the sights and telling their story--a surreal endurance test that's both deeply horrifying and incongruously uplifting.

It's a disaster movie told in the first person; a real-life Cloverfield, only infinitely scarier. Kimberly, who also raps under the name Black Kold Madina, is an outrageous character. Gregarious even in the face of unspeakable catastrophe, she's a camera-happy extrovert even in the opening moments, bouncing through the streets and chatting up the neighbors while ominous storm clouds gather on the horizon.

Scott is far quieter and more contemplative; he eventually confesses to the camera that he was a street criminal before the hurricane hit, and perhaps he should take this trauma as a wake-up call.

Trouble the Water works best as a series of snapshots of a world turned upside down. The Roberts' footage quickly shrinks to quick, battery-saving bursts. We gauge the water level watching the almost time-lapsed submergence of a nearby stop sign. While these friends and neighbors pull together, crowding into cramped attics and sharing what little food or water they have left, the visuals grow more bizarre and dreamlike. You won't forget the guy nonchalantly paddling his way down the street in a bathtub, or the gang's nick-of-time rescue by a family member atop a floating punching bag.

It gets worse upon their return--a full fortnight later and there aren't just dead dogs drawing flies in the street. Kimberly's uncle's rotting corpse hasn't even been removed from his living room. The National Guard is finally on the scene, but they seem weary and overwhelmed. What's surprising is how positive the Roberts remain, constantly thanking these troops for being there, offering sincere hopes they don't get shipped to Iraq.

We wander through the devastation, and the survivors talk us through their journey to higher ground. Turned away at gunpoint from an empty naval base (the soldiers on guard received presidential commendations) they eventually found refuge in a school building, leading to a peculiarly touching moment: Scott shows us how to fashion classroom desks into a makeshift double bed.

The film loses momentum in its second half, after the Roberts relocate to Alexandria, La., and the filmmakers shift their aim toward the fumbling FEMA bureaucracy and half-assed cleanup efforts in the Lower Ninth Ward. It's a vital part of the story, but one lacking the focus and forcefulness of that perilous trek to safety.

Lessin and Deal have worked extensively in the past with Michael Moore, an unfortunate influence that creeps in with obvious and unnecessary swipes at an official in a Louisiana Tourism office. Kimberly and Scott are such marvelous, engaging subjects, and Trouble the Water's sense of shared humanity runs so deep, snarky cheap shots are hardly necessary.