#102912

Trouble ends with an impression, however utopian, of integrated community. The ‘white folks’ to whom Kimberly did sell her footage (or, presumably, reach some sort of positive financial arrangement) incorporated her music as professional singer/songwriter Kold Medina amply into the film. Roberts’s displacement by the storm and flood and, significantly, her co-authorship of a return narrative (living history that could be filmed and filming history that demanded to be lived) expanded Roberts’s orbit beyond New Orleans: ‘I’m trying to do something different. I see it now. I couldn’t see it before when I was inside.’

It was a very large mix of people. There were kids who had run away from home. There were very old men and women of every race—black, white, Hispanic, Asian—and everything in between. The tunnel represented the full spectrum of people. What was most interesting to me was that it wasn’t separated in the same way that communities would tend to separate up top, where people at the time were much more separated by race. In the tunnel, it was much more separated by what you did. So, if you were a drug addict, you tended to live near the other drug addicts. If you were completely clean and sober, you tended to live near others who were clean and sober. If you were a kid, you lived near the other kids. It was a very diverse group of people, and, at the same time, individuals in a group of people. The most important thing was that everybody was an individual. The common bond they shared was that they lived together in the tunnel.

Starships.

Kimberly's star power comes from the music she writes and sings, music that was almost lost in the storm. The moment in the aftermath when she finds it and raps about her feelings will knock you off your feet. At the Sundance Film Festival in January, when the film premiered, that moment got audiences standing and cheering. Never mind Katrina, Kimberly Roberts is the real force of nature. Despite the political incompetence that continues to devastate New Orleans, Kimberly and Scott went home with only positive vibes. The repair needed in their city has gotten Scott a job in construction. And Kimberly's music has attracted producers. No wonder, a glory abides in this woman's voice. "Inspiring" is an overused word in the movie business. But it fits here.

Trouble the Water

The introductions to the characters include not only their immersion in the middle class values exemplified by emphasizing work and, especially, workin’ on the house—civilizing the underground. The opening also provides a space in which each subject can tell his or her story, which explains how each ended up homeless but fled the city—first, as Greg puts it, to “get out of the public eyesight,” but then “this fuckin’ became home.” Even though Henry tells Tommy that “houses stop you from being helpless, not from being homeless,” according to their narratives each subject seems to have made a home underground that would be impossible on the streets above. Ralph explains how crack made him homeless and lost him his family. And Tommy tells about his escape from a family that “couldn’t treat him like a human being.” These introductions move the narrative forward because they allow us to view the contrast between the hell of living on the street and the homes and families they have built below ground.