Educational Media Reviews Online

In the Lower 9, through a broken window and past a fluttering, torn curtain, we see a precariously leaning house frame: all remnants of the desolation, the visual scars, aged organically more than six years after Hurricane Katrina. The images are often dirty and gritty studies of decimated homes, filled with dried mud, soiled portraits, and weathered wood. The scenes also possess a serene quality, reminiscent of a pastoral novel, as green grass and wildlife slowly overtake the decay. A perfectly white egg is inexplicably nested in dried living room swamp. In a most twisted natural trompe l'oeuil, the viewer's brain cannot help but initially process the intricate black mold patterns on walls as exquisite victorian wall paper.

Watching this film can easily be mistaken for extended rubber-necking, as the viewer, a voyeur, struggles to comprehend how this bedroom, that kitchen, these drum sets and what is undoubtedly a grandma's prized sofa set, met such a fate. This backdrop serves as a stark contrast to the vivid descriptions of what the Lower 9 was, reflections on the neighborhood, music, crawfish cook outs, church services--and not wanting to go to them, raising chickens, and helping to protect the Black Panthers back in the day. Even stories of personal struggles before Katrina, a Vietnam vet and a daughter subject to abuse by her father, speak to triumph over adversity through community: a theme that continues among those who have returned. The joyful reflections are always tempered by the knowledge that there is no way, other than oral history, to show future generations what the Lower 9 once was. 80% of residents have not returned-- and with only one school and no hospital, the prospects of more residents returning seem low: what is there to return to?

With several well known and high quality documentaries already on the market on post-Katrina New Orleans, The Lower 9: Story of Home is recommended not only visually for its unique documentation of the actual state of affairs on the ground almost 7 years after Katrina, but also for its value as an anthropological oral history. Less of a call to action or a political indictment of government failures in the post-Katrina response (which has been done very well previously), this film is an invaluable photo album for a community robbed of family heirlooms, capturing a special elusive moment in time, when residents' pre-Katrina memories are still clear, but post-Katrina reality is firmly entrenched in the landscape.