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Director:
Kasi Lemmons
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Jurnee Smollett, Debbi
Morgan
Running Time: 108 minutes
Original UK Release: August 1998
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Set in
the sun-baked swamps of the 1960s American Deep South, actress
and writer Kasi Lemmons' directorial debut was so startlingly
impressive it hinted at future greatness. But two mostly ignored
directorial outings later (Dr Hugo and The Caveman's Valentine)
and the recognition she so richly deserves, on this evidence
at least, still seems to have eluded her.
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Critically
adored when released in 1998, Eve's Bayou is the wonderfully
evocative tale of a prosperous black family's emotional
ups and downs during one tumultuous summer.
Told
through the eyes of sprightly youngster Eve Batiste
(the eye-catching Jurnee Smollett), her show-stopping
introductory narrative is a devastating attention-grabber:
"Memory is a selection of images, some elusive,
others printed indelibly on the brain. The summer I
killer my father I was ten years old."
The
man in question is respected doctor Louis Batiste (the
ever reliable Samuel L. Jackson). As much as he loves
his family, he's a compulsive womanizer and it's his
rampant infidelity which drives much of the spellbinding
plot, in particular the knock-on effect it has on the
film's strong cast of feisty women.
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These
include his wife Roz (Lynn Whitfield), her psychic, thrice-widowed
sister Mozelle (Debbi Morgan) and a local voodoo priestess
played by Diahann Carol. Then there are his two daughters,
Eve and her older sister Cisely (Meagan Good), whose close
bond and differing perspectives of their father's apparent
indiscretion during an opening scene party are central to
the entire film.
Drawing substantially from both the atmosphere offered by
the Southern location and its strong Creole influence, Lemmons
has expertly crafted a hauntingly beautiful movie which immerses
itself in deep philosophical themes. This is a place caught
between the material and spiritual worlds, where truth and
its perception can change depending on the light of day.
In focusing the energy through Eve, who unwittingly opens
a Pandora's Box of family secrets, we share her eventful passage
to knowledge and eventually come to understand the passionate
links she forges with her female relations. She's a girl who
is brimming with provocative questions and intelligence, but
doesn't fully understand their implications. So we can only
marvel as she becomes transfixed by the charismatic influence
her aunt Mozelle holds over her and await the inevitable consequences
after she visits the fascinating Carol.
As a director, Lemmons' maturity belies her inexperience.
A familiar face in movies such as The Silence of the Lambs
(playing Jodie Foster's friend) she had never previously stepped
behind a camera and it's a testament to her writing and directing
talents that Jackson was so taken with her script that he
joined the project early on as a producer.
Weaving together various themes such as sisterhood, superstition
and religion, the deep mystical content lends the film an
eerie, other-worldly atmosphere which is superbly highlighted
by director of photography Amy Vincent.
Even the tragic final reel somehow manages to be strangely
uplifting as Eve and Cisely confirm their unbreakable bond
while we watch each sister's different perspective of the
fateful opening scene party unfold.
A truly magical writing and directing debut by an undoubted
talent, the only real remaining mystery is why Lemmons never
went on to even greater things.
David
Lichtneker
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