Low and Behold -- Sundance Film Festival Screening Review
I wait listed Low and Behold at the Sundance Festival in Salt Lake City tonight and have time to share my thoughts about this film
Low and Behold combines fictional and non-fictional elements to create a compelling story about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The fact that most of the cast and crew were from (or near ) New Orleans gives this film a personal flavor.
Tanner Stully comes to New Orleans to work for his uncle as an insurance claims adjuster. Tanner's crass uncle is mostly in it for the money (and in the film as our main comic relief, helping to ease some of the somberness of the subject matter).
Tanner has difficulty adjusting to this job and finding his way around New Orleans. He's stopped near some abandoned warehouses trying to figure out a map when Nixon, a New Orleans native sticks his head in the car window and offers to help Tanner find his next client's home in return for a ride to the park to look his daughter's missing dog. A scared Tanner leaves Nixon in the dust, but is later forced to form an alliance with him when he gets trapped on a client's roof and needs the passing Nixon to prop the ladder back up so that he can get down.
Tanner and Nixon form an unlikely partnership and eventual friendship. Nixon helps Tanner with roof inspections (Tanner has a major fear of heights) and Tanner helps Nixon look for his dog. During all of this we hear Katrina tales from the real people that have lost everything, and we see the damages to actual homes and buildings, the garbage piled in the streets, kids roasting marshmallows on a mattress that they've set on fire to outside an apartment building. The fictional story and the real stories interweave and flesh out our experience of this place. Eddie Rouse's performance as Nixon is excellent -- and the times when he's not talking, his face tells us thousands of things and lets us into his pain.
Most of Low and Behold was filmed in the early summer of 2006, we learned from the director during the Q & A that followed the film, and it's appalling to see that 10 months post-Katrina the conditions that people are still living in.
The film was written by the director, Zack Godshall, and the actor who played Tanner, Barlow Jacobs. Godshall lived 40 minutes outside New Orleans and Jacobs lived in New Orleans when Katrina hit. Previously they had talked about making film together, but didn't come up with any ideas that inspired. After Katrina, Jacobs was homeless and almost broke when got the opportunity to train to become an insurance claims adjustment in Florida. He described his two-week training period as the most "surreal" experience of his life. After working as a claims adjuster for a bit, he called up Godshall and told him he had the film idea. He continued to work as a claims adjuster for 3 months to research the subject, and as an ironic twist, helped fund the film from the money he earned doing the job.
Jacobs told the audience that there is a lot of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder amongst the people of New Orleans, which as far as the filmmakers could tell, is not really being addressed. They believe it was the cause of the suicide of one of their actors two months after the film was shot, and who the film is dedicated to. Godshall also told us that a lot of the people that they interviewed for the film are worried that they will be forgotten, and were willing to tell their stories to help keep our attention on the many problems still plaguing their post-Katrina lives.
The filmmakers will be giving a portion of the proceeds from the film to some type post-Katrina charity.
The Sundance 2007 Film Guide's review of Low and Behold.
Low and Behold on MySpace
Low and Behold combines fictional and non-fictional elements to create a compelling story about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The fact that most of the cast and crew were from (or near ) New Orleans gives this film a personal flavor.
Tanner Stully comes to New Orleans to work for his uncle as an insurance claims adjuster. Tanner's crass uncle is mostly in it for the money (and in the film as our main comic relief, helping to ease some of the somberness of the subject matter).
Tanner has difficulty adjusting to this job and finding his way around New Orleans. He's stopped near some abandoned warehouses trying to figure out a map when Nixon, a New Orleans native sticks his head in the car window and offers to help Tanner find his next client's home in return for a ride to the park to look his daughter's missing dog. A scared Tanner leaves Nixon in the dust, but is later forced to form an alliance with him when he gets trapped on a client's roof and needs the passing Nixon to prop the ladder back up so that he can get down.
Tanner and Nixon form an unlikely partnership and eventual friendship. Nixon helps Tanner with roof inspections (Tanner has a major fear of heights) and Tanner helps Nixon look for his dog. During all of this we hear Katrina tales from the real people that have lost everything, and we see the damages to actual homes and buildings, the garbage piled in the streets, kids roasting marshmallows on a mattress that they've set on fire to outside an apartment building. The fictional story and the real stories interweave and flesh out our experience of this place. Eddie Rouse's performance as Nixon is excellent -- and the times when he's not talking, his face tells us thousands of things and lets us into his pain.
Most of Low and Behold was filmed in the early summer of 2006, we learned from the director during the Q & A that followed the film, and it's appalling to see that 10 months post-Katrina the conditions that people are still living in.
The film was written by the director, Zack Godshall, and the actor who played Tanner, Barlow Jacobs. Godshall lived 40 minutes outside New Orleans and Jacobs lived in New Orleans when Katrina hit. Previously they had talked about making film together, but didn't come up with any ideas that inspired. After Katrina, Jacobs was homeless and almost broke when got the opportunity to train to become an insurance claims adjustment in Florida. He described his two-week training period as the most "surreal" experience of his life. After working as a claims adjuster for a bit, he called up Godshall and told him he had the film idea. He continued to work as a claims adjuster for 3 months to research the subject, and as an ironic twist, helped fund the film from the money he earned doing the job.
Jacobs told the audience that there is a lot of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder amongst the people of New Orleans, which as far as the filmmakers could tell, is not really being addressed. They believe it was the cause of the suicide of one of their actors two months after the film was shot, and who the film is dedicated to. Godshall also told us that a lot of the people that they interviewed for the film are worried that they will be forgotten, and were willing to tell their stories to help keep our attention on the many problems still plaguing their post-Katrina lives.
The filmmakers will be giving a portion of the proceeds from the film to some type post-Katrina charity.
The Sundance 2007 Film Guide's review of Low and Behold.
Low and Behold on MySpace