In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, two filmmakers, drawn together
by outrage, take a sixty-day road trip from New England to New Orleans.
Along the way they meet evacuees and witness the loss, dignity, perseverance
and humor of people who have become exiles in their own country. The
breakdown of trust between a government and its citizens, the influence
of race, class, and gender – as well as the ethics of documentary
filmmaking itself – form the backdrop for this universal story
of the search for home.
[LONG SYNOPSIS]
What does it mean to be exiled in your own country? Drawn together
by outrage, documentary filmmakers Ed Pincus and Lucia Small embark
on a sixty-day road trip from New England to Louisiana, and ultimately
into the Katrina devastation zone to meet evacuees who have lost
their homes. They make the uneasy choice of integrating themselves
into the story, "because when you’re two white northerners
heading South, remaining behind the camera just doesn’t feel
like an option."
When the film opens, it is six months since Katrina hit New Orleans
and the levees breached causing the largest internal migration in
American history. We first see the eerie beauty and horror of
the shattered landscape, draped in heavy fog and emptied of its residents.
The story of an American Diaspora unfolds – the displaced
struggling with loss of home, family, and culture. Emotions range
from deep pain to surprising humor, as filmmakers and subjects tackle
questions of race, class, and our government's failure to protect
its own.
The Axe in the Attic documents the natural and human landscape
of Katrina and how evacuees adjust, or do not, to new environs sometimes
achingly familiar and sometimes wholly alien. Having lost everything,
they seek safety and comfort however they can. Amid the grieving
and isolation, family, church, cell phones, and consumer goods become
life support.
The filmmakers encounter a range of evacuees grappling with the
daily grind of their altered — from a close-knit African American
family that comes from the Lower Ninth in New Orleans to start over
in the wintry hills of suburban Pittsburgh, to a single, white working
mother raising two teenagers living in a condo on the outskirts of
Cincinnati, to Baker, Louisiana, where the residents of FEMA’s
largest trailer park (“Renaissance Village,” with almost
600 trailers) live as if in a refugee camp.
As the filmmakers approach the hurricane zone, the mood darkens.
A surreal atmosphere of calm prevails as days are filled with managing
endless government and insurance paperwork. Disillusionment runs
rampant. Health problems abound. Spouses argue about the future.
Grown men weep. Most are still in shock and reeling from the monumental
task of starting over. Hope emerges as evacuees cope in myriad ways – by
shifting from harrowing tales to humor, to recreating the foods and
smells of their lost homes. Above all they seek meaning in what has
happened to them.
Their search for meaning in the world resonates with the filmmakers
whose life experiences bring two different, frequently competing
viewpoints to the story. Their personal perspectives inform their
filmmaking choices at every turn, becoming an undercurrent of The
Axe in the Attic. As they encounter difficult choices and awkward
situations with some subjects, they question their approach and the
ethics of documentary filmmaking.
The consequences of a breakdown of trust between a government and
its citizens and the enduring capacity of human beings to face their
survival with dignity form the backdrop for this universal story
of the search for home.
