Eve’s Bayou (1997) A Lingering, Compelling and Emotional Icon of Modern Black Cinema (Blu-Ray Review)

DISCLAIMER: This review is written by a white man with all of the privilege and bias that entails. 

Eve’s Bayou has earned a place within black film history since its release in 1997. Selected by the US Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’, and included in Time’s list of the ’25 Most Important Films on Race’, the film maintains prominence 25 years after its release. Written and directed by Kasi Lemmons and with a predominantly black cast, Eve’s Bayou is noticeably not about racism or racial tension, nor does it focus on poverty, crime or deprivation. It is an unfortunate indication of film and critical culture that this absence of particular subject matter seems unusual: can black films have themes and subjects other than racial divisions and differences? Guess what, they can and have for decades, but this remains underseen due to the marginalisation of African American cinema, much as African American people themselves. 

The Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray release of Eve’s Bayou is a welcome highlighting of this film, important both as a black film and also as a woman’s film. Written and directed by a woman of colour and with a story from the perspective of a young black girl, Eve’s Bayou deserves mention alongside The Color Purple, and has none of the problematic cultural appropriations of that earlier film. The film focuses on the Batistes, a middle-class family in the titular bayou in Louisiana, and tells a story of family tensions, growing pains and recriminations, with a heady and atmospheric backdrop. Lemmons blends her taut family drama with Southern Gothic intrigue as well as a supernatural aspect, which remains largely ambiguous and therefore adds to the mystery. 

The opening voiceover informs the viewer that something severe is looming, lending the film an overall mood of dread despite the young protagonist, Eve (Jurnee Smollet), the middle child of Roz (Lynn Whitfield) and Louis (Samuel L. Jackson). The mood of dread begins in a highly Freudian moment when Eve sees her father kissing and ‘rubbing against’ another woman, and this unfortunate event and sighting leads to further secrets, lies and conflict. 

These tensions extend beyond the dialogue and into the visual fabric of the film. When Eve talks to her older sister Cisely (Meagan Good) about what she saw, we see the event replayed, this time with Cisely explaining what happened rather than Eve’s initial experience. Similar devices appear throughout the film, including different versions of other events as well as monochrome footage spliced with colour, flash cuts and slow motion, all of which add to the sense that we see cannot always be trusted. Thus, the film plays with notions of seeing, perceiving, and remembering. The conceit is taken further when Eve seeks advice from her aunt Mozelle (Debbi Morgan), who sees even more. Mozelle’s various deceased husbands suggest some sort of curse, and she possesses psychic visions that appear to show her the future, sometimes clearly but other times obtusely. As Eve and Mozelle alike see increasingly dark omens, the subjectivity of sight becomes ever more apparent, as while something seems to approach, the only certainty about this something is that it is to be feared. 

All the cast convey their responses to their fear effectively, with Samuel L. Jackson giving his town doctor / local lothario Louis an easy charm and indeed smarm, that smacks of dismissiveness towards those around him. As Roz, Lynn Whitfield offers distress without hysteria, her tortured housewife figure struggles to maintain composure in the face of familial uproar. Debbi Morgan is highly engaging as Mozelle, conveying deep regret over her lost loves as well as spellbinding delivery when recounting an earlier terrible event. Appropriately though, the shining star of the film is Jurnee Smollett, whose Eve captivates the viewer from the beginning ensuring that we are with her every step of her torturous road. 

This road winds through the Louisiana swamp, which Lemmons uses to create an environment of both expanse and enclosure. The open sky is juxtaposed with trees both tall and broad, that offer a rich playground for Eve, Cisely and their younger brother Poe (Jake Smollet) while also entrapping them. Long and medium shots of women with water behind them indicate the narrow passages upon which they must tread carefully. This entrapment reinforces the fateful visions of Mozelle and the ominous warnings of local fortune teller Elzora (Diahann Carroll). With a slow and measured approach, Lemmons conveys both the steady disintegration of Eve’s innocence as well as the maturation of Cisely, the adult characters largely seen from the children’s perspectives as heroes and villains that shift roles as these perspectives changes. A few of Lemmons’ directorial choices clog the film somewhat, especially when violence takes place as the editing jars, at one point on a literal jar. Then again, the disjointedness of violence does suggest the psychic wounds inflicted by trauma, trauma which in this case wounds even before the events take place. 

The ambiguities of perception and causality add strong intrigue to what could be a fairly straightforward narrative, with tragedy looming but the viewer uncertain how much to take literally. Therefore, aside from its social and historical significance, Eve’s Bayou is an emotional and compelling film about the vagaries of knowledge and sight, inventively presented and lingering in the mind. 

This Criterion Collection release comes with an essay by film scholar Kara Keeling, interviews with director Lemmons as well as composer Terence Blanchard, footage of a cast reunion and a showcase of Polaroids taken during production by cinematographer Amy Vincent. This showcase, along with cast and crew photographs by William Eggleston, provides a detailed history of the film, a history that also includes Dr. Hugo, a short film Lemmons made as proof of concept for Eve’s Bayou. This short is presented in a new 4K digital transfer, as is the director’s cut of the feature film which also includes an audio commentary from Lemmons along with cinematographer Vincent, producer Caldecot Chubb and editor Terilyn A. Shropshire. The theatrical release version does not have a 4K transfer, which means that some of Vincent’s sumptuous cinematography is rendered somewhat fuzzy. Still, that perhaps shows more respect for Lemmons’ overall version, adding to the significance attached to this timely new release. 

Eve’s Bayou

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