Spike Lee is no Ken Burns. His “documentary” about the human tragedy that unfolded during and after the Hurricane “Katrina” hit the Gulf Coast is not unfair but unbalanced. Lee’s cause is noble one. He wants to draw attention to the suffering experienced by the residents of New Orleans even a year after the catastrophe. The moviemaker Lee has a great eye for ordinary Americans who in front of his camera can act out their justified rage about the failures of the Federal government. But letting individual victims provide an oral history of their plights cannot explain exactly why the response of the Federal government was so poor and why the Federal government has not made good on its promised to rebuild New Orleans. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the chief villain in Lee’s morality tale. Yet not a single FEMA representative is interviewed to present their side. The Major of New Orleans (Ray Nagin) and the governor of Louisiana (Kathleen Blanco) blame the Federal government for everything, but it becomes quite apparent that they are not completely without fault for why New Orleanians suffered so much. Lee does not have the guts to ask the tough questions that any impartial person should ask: Can all parts of New Orleans be made safe with levees so that the city will not be destroyed again or should people receive big subsidies to move inland? I would have liked Lee to ask the Berkeley engineering professor, who provided the chief scientific report a why the levees broke, whether the city should be rebuilt at all with federal money. If the house I lived in all my life and love is destroyed by a flood, I am not the best witness to answer the question whether it is safe to rebuild the house on the same site.  Lee’s film is a great promotional film for the plight of the Katrina victims.  It does not come close to being a definitive account of how and why Katrina could destroy the fabled city of New Orleans that will never be as large as it was before the flood.

The Major of New Orleans (Ray Nagin) and the governor of Louisiana (Kathleen Blanco) blame the Federal government for everything, but it becomes quite apparent that they are not completely without fault for why New Orleanians suffered so much.
Lee does not have the guts to ask the tough questions that any impartial person should ask: Can all parts of New Orleans be made safe with levees so that the city will not be destroyed again or should people receive big subsidies to move inland? I would have liked Lee to ask the Berkeley engineering professor, who provided the chief scientific report a why the levees broke, whether the city should be rebuild at all with federal money. If the house I lived in all my life and love is destroyed by a flood, I am not the best witness to answer the question whether it is safe to rebuild the house on the same site.  Lee