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Nathan Weinbender
Eve's Bayou (1997)
Both a sweaty southern gothic and a rumination on the end of adolescence, writer-director Kasi Lemmons' assured debut mixes memory, myth and voodoo as it untangles one family's dark history amidst the Louisiana backwaters of the 1960s. Jurnee Smollett-Bell stars as a young girl who discovers her beloved father (Samuel L. Jackson) is having multiple affairs, which not only causes her to regard him as a previously unforeseen threat but shakes her awake to the confusing, often menacing nature of the adult world. Roger Ebert named Eve's Bayou the best film of 1997, which earned it attention at the time, but it deserves an even wider audience.
Both a sweaty southern gothic and a rumination on the end of adolescence, writer-director Kasi Lemmons' assured debut mixes memory, myth and voodoo as it untangles one family's dark history amidst the Louisiana backwaters of the 1960s. Jurnee Smollett-Bell stars as a young girl who discovers her beloved father (Samuel L. Jackson) is having multiple affairs, which not only causes her to regard him as a previously unforeseen threat but shakes her awake to the confusing, often menacing nature of the adult world. Roger Ebert named Eve's Bayou the best film of 1997, which earned it attention at the time, but it deserves an even wider audience.
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