Spike Lee's Lament

This week the mainstream Media will be marking the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. They will probably cover the story with plenty of images from the devastation that was an environmental massacre of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle. We'll probably see stories of recovery and loss; how FEMA failed to help victims and images of dead bodies floating in water. I expect these stories to be short of detail and full of sympathy for the victims. They'll tell us what we know but not what we've learned.
 
Spike Lee, the great American filmmaker and NY Knicks supporter, has just released a documentary film called, ''When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts". It was produced by HBO and recently broadcast on The Movie Network in Canada and HBO in the United States.
 
To suggest that Lee's film is critical of government would be incomplete. The film is an indictment of the American system. The breakdown of the levees as symbols of the breakdown in government support all dressed in subtle forms of racism and chauvinism. It is the sum of all that is failing in America today, be it corporations, government or its class system. It doesn’t cast blame at any individual or organization, but over-all you get the sense that the American Dream has failed miserably.

Lee’s use of the first person narrative is a technique of story telling that is most effective for eliciting our own response. In a way, it’s a conversation rather than a lecture; living history versus interpretation. Every person interviewed had a story to tell from the Mayor of New Orleans who tried to act effectively to the single mother who lost her 5 year-old in the flooding. We hear from musicians, religious leaders, children, parents, soldiers and civil servants. What we experience is the collective pain and frustration of each one of them as Hurricane Katrina approached, landed and left with a wake of destruction.

Lee’s film is a lament for the American Dream and one of the most important of the year.
 
That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.