Examining an American Tragedy 

requiem (noun):
  1. a mass for a dead person; also: a musical setting for this
  2. a musical service or hymn in honor of the dead

Spike Lee is a filmmaker renowned for being forthright. With every film he lays his views on politics and race bare. If there's a point to be made, Lee will make it even if that means sacrificing character, story and structure to do it. It's a trait that has become more pronounced over the years and has made for an unsatisfying and unfocused ending of Bamboozled and turned She Hate Me a cinematic quagmire. Even at their most disjointed, Lee's films have expanded the discussion of race and have challenged the United States to look inward. 

While Lee's uneasy combination of nuanced storytelling and blunt agenda can make for puissant yet uneven films, it's this same approach that infuses Lee's documentaries with a ferocity and undeniable truth that Michael Moore can only dream of. 

In his new documentary, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, Lee effortlessly recounts the story of Hurricane Katrina, capturing the confusion, anger, despair, grief and even the dark humor that has injected this catastrophe with an emotional resonance that will be felt by the city of New Orleans for decades.

Lee opens Levees with images of a pre and post Katrina New Orleans backed by a melancholy jazz score. Faces of smiling black children are juxtaposed against the gutted remains of flooded homes. A vibrant, culturally alive New Orleans is contrasted with a dormant New Orleans that lies open like an infected wound. It's a tribute that makes Lee's use of "requiem" in the title a literal manifestation. Yet, it's also a celebration of New Orleans cultural heritage and the resilience of its citizens.

From there the documentary traces a mostly chronological path from the days just before Katrina made landfall and to the rebuilding effort afterwards.

This isn't an easy film to watch. While displaying reverence and empathy, Lee doesn't restrain himself as he pulls back the covers and shows you all the ugliness that was Hurricane Katrina.

There's the political finger pointing by New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and other politicos. There's the footage and audio of experts foreshadowing the devastation. There are the families who recount stories of how they learned which family members lived and which died. And there's the footage of those who can no longer contain their emotions and who openly vent a host of emotions before the camera.

At one point, Levees follows the mother of frequent Lee collaborator Terrence Blanchard. Returning to her house for the first time in months, she breaks down as she walks among the wreckage. Her son tries to reassure her that it's only things she lost and that she still has her life. She admonishes him because her home was her life. It's filled with memories physical and literal. Simplistic platitudes, be they from her son or as demonstrated by Vice President Cheney and President Bush, aren't an adequate response.

Levees does what our PR-minded government and timid media is afraid to do, and shows the bodies of dead New Orleans rotting in the streets. The entire disaster was and is an ugly scar on America's soul and no amount of PR spin or media savvy is going to make the devastation or its decade's long impact go away.

Some will be surprised that there's quite a bit of humor in Levees. And after reliving the most destructive event in American history since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, it's a much welcomed cathartic release.

The true power of Lee's documentary will be not in its immediate impact-which is sure to be seismic once the politicians see how they fare-but in what it portends for the future of New Orleans. Encapsulating the raw emotion and the disaster's complex timeline had to be a Herculean task, but by doing so, Lee has created a cinematic yardstick by which the rebuilding effort can be measured.

Years from now, there will be no hiding behind a veil of we didn't know and we don't remember. Nor will the people of New Orleans, especially the poor and the black, have to fight to keep what happened alive in America's memory, because Lee has remembered for them all.

The first two acts of the When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts air 9 PM Monday, August 21 on HBO. The second two acts air 9 PM Tuesday, August 22. All four acts will air 8 PM August 29, the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Charles Judson is a local screen & comic book writer and a regular contributor and film critic for CinemATL.