''Hurricane on the Bayou'' is an American 2006

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

that focuses on the

wetlands of Louisiana The wetlands of Louisiana are water-saturated coastal and swamp regions of southern Louisiana, often called 'Bayou'. The Louisiana coastal zone stretches from the border of Texas to the Mississippi line and comprises two wetland-dominated ecosyste ...

before and after Hurricane Katrina. ''Hurricane on the Bayou'' is both a documentary of Hurricane Katrina's effects and a call to restore Louisiana's wetlands, rebuild

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, and honor the culture of the city. The film is narrated by

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

Meryl Streep Mary Louise Meryl Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Often described as "the best actress of her generation", Streep is particularly known for her versatility and accent adaptability. She has received numerous accolades throu ...

and driven by a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

-, blues-,

Cajun The Cajuns (; French: ''les Cadjins'' or ''les Cadiens'' ), also known as Louisiana ''Acadians'' (French: ''les Acadiens''), are a Louisiana French ethnicity mainly found in the U.S. state of Louisiana. While Cajuns are usually described as ...

-, and

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

-fueled soundtrack featuring

Tab Benoit Tab Benoit (born November 17, 1967) is an American blues guitarist, musician, and singer. His playing combines a number of blues styles, primarily Delta blues. He plays a stock 1972 Fender Telecaster Thinline electric guitar and writes his own ...

, Amanda Shaw, Mavis Staples, and Allen Toussaint. It was originally a "what-if" scenario about a major hurricane impacting New Orleans – prior to Hurricane Katrina. The film debuted at the

Entergy Entergy Corporation is a Fortune 500 integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations in the Deep South of the United States. Entergy is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, and gene ...

IMAX in New Orleans, on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, several months before being shown elsewhere.

Synopsis

The film begins in the bayou itself, as a family of alligators frolic in the water to the tune of the Cajun classic "Iko Iko". The story then sets off on an historical exploration of how New Orleans rose up hundreds of years ago out of an untamed swampland – and went on to become celebrated around the world as "The Big Easy", a place where a feeling of joyful freedom permeated the music, the food and the city's inimitable talent for turning "good times" into an art form. Here, a spicy gumbo of African, Native American, Cajun, Creole and Southern influences forged a unique culture. Louisiana's coastal location (the state contains 40% of all the coastal wetlands in the continental U.S. according to the National Wetlands Research Center) was both a boon and a bane to the city. New Orleans evolved into the busiest port in the U.S., but after engineers diverted the Mississippi River, depleting the wetlands, the city became increasingly vulnerable to the killer winds and rising waters of seasonal hurricanes. Today, the situation grows more and more dangerous as every year Louisiana loses enough land to make up the island of Manhattan. Setting out for the mystery-tinged bayous with Tab Benoit and Amanda Shaw, ''Hurricane on the Bayou'' reveals how in the last 50 years, the natural coastal buffer that once sheltered New Orleans from severe storms has drastically deteriorated, endangering many unique animal and plant species and leaving the city wide open to Mother Nature's ferocious forces. Spectacular flights over the Gulf of Mexico reveal the shocking reality that every half an hour, Louisiana loses a section of wetlands the size of a football field. Meanwhile, a side-trip into the vibrant swamplands probes how the bayou provides a fragile home to a family of alligators with newborn babies. Here, Tab Benoit explains that hope for New Orleans' future will lie in concerted efforts to not only preserve but restore these wetlands by redirecting the Mississippi River's silt and re-planting vital foliage. Ultimately, the story builds to the monster storm that was Katrina and the crisis it brought to New Orleans, causing families to be separated, homes to be lost and one hundred square miles of wetlands and marshes to be destroyed by saltwater (including damaged caused by Hurricane Rita). Visceral, state-of-the-art CGI effects created by Hollywood specialists Sassoon Film Design recreates the fury of the storm, when fierce winds tore off the roof of the Superdome. Then, haunting, never-before-seen 70mm footage of the storm's aftermath provides a shocking reminder of just how vast the storm's devastation really was. Finally, returning to New Orleans in the bittersweet 2006 Mardi Gras season, the film reveals a city in the first throes of recovery – and reunites Allen Toussaint, Amanda Shaw, Chubby Carrier and Marva Wright for a passionate performance of a resonant modern hymn (written by the film's composer Steve Wood) in the oldest Cathedral in North America, New Orleans' elegant St. Louis Cathedral.

Soundtrack

The music, produced by the

Audubon Nature Institute The Audubon Nature Institute is a family of museums and parks dedicated to nature and based in New Orleans, Louisiana. It consists of the Audubon Zoo, Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, Audubon Louisiana Nature Center, Audubon Park, Woldenberg R ...

, includes performances of the jazz, blues and gospel that appeared in the film, as well as samples of Dixieland and other pieces by

Fats Domino Antoine Dominique Domino Jr. (February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017), known as Fats Domino, was an American pianist, singer and songwriter. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Born in New O ...

Chubby Carrier Roy "Chubby" Carrier is an American zydeco musician. He is the leader of Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band. Biography Carrier's father and grandfather both played zydeco music, and his cousins recorded under the name The Carrier Bro ...

, and the Neville Brothers. Proceeds go to the Audubon Nature Institute. Though the film does not have a designated soundtrack, the film uses music samples from each of the musicians in the film. Iconic south Louisiana songs, such as "

Iko Iko "Iko Iko" () is a much-covered New Orleans song that tells of a parade collision between two tribes of Mardi Gras Indians and the traditional confrontation. The song, under the original title "Jock-A-Mo", was written and released in 1953 as a sin ...

," are also used in the documentary to place more emphasis on how cultured south Louisiana is. A

theme generally influences each song. ''Hurricane on the Bayou'' introduces four New Orleans musicians: singer, songwriter, pianist, producer, and Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame inductee Allen Toussaint; Cajun Blues guitarist and wetlands activist Tab Benoit; teenaged fiddling virtuoso and rising musician Amanda Shaw; and the man who discovered Amanda and helped produce her first album,

zydeco Zydeco ( or , french: Zarico) is a music genre that evolved in southwest Louisiana by French Creole speakers which blends blues, rhythm and blues, and music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles and the Native American people of Louisiana. Al ...

accordionist Chubby Carrier. Each has a story to tell about their love for Louisiana and their loss during Katrina.

Funding

Funders of the film included Chevron Corporation, Dow Chemical, and Dominion Exploration and Production.Philip Kennicott
"Rose-Colored Lens: In Louisiana, Environmental Destruction Never Looked So Pretty"
Washington Post, March 22, 2007

Awards

In 2007, ''Hurricane on the Bayou'' was nominated for a Golden Reel Award in Sound Editing.

References

External links