Film Reflection 3: My Louisiana Love

Lindsay Harris

COMM 3824-01

4/25/19

Film Reflection 3: My Louisiana Love

            The film My Louisiana Love follows the story of an indigenous woman named Monique and her relationship to the wetlands of Louisiana. The film utilizes her personal connection to Louisiana to evoke emotions within the viewer. The footage is clearly all home videos that Monique taped showing her father and grandparents as well as herself and her interactions with these people and the land that they live on. Monique started making this film following being hit by disasters that made it nearly impossible to live their normal life on the land they previously lived on. The film also included interviews with other indigenous people who had been affected by Hurricane Katrina and the BP Oil Spill. The film was almost entirely narrated by Monique’s voiceover, a tactic used to make the film more personal to her own experiences, which was accentuated by the sole use of her footage that was either filmed by her or included her in the shots.

            It is clear this film was entirely unscripted as there are portions in which Monique is so upset in genuine conversations that she cannot speak or gets emotional and wants to stop filming. The opinions shared in this film are reinforced through the use of filming older members of her community who have obviously lived on that land for a much longer period of time and therefore have seen it go through more change or relied on it for longer periods of time than Monique has. An interesting aspect of the film was when it talked about the two deaths in her life as they related to the personal and social impact the BP oil spill and Hurricane Katrina had on people in the community. Monique says in the film that “Illness of the land and water breathes illness onto people,” and that is showcased through the deaths of these people in just her life alone.

            I did not particularly enjoy this film. I feel like it presented a lot of the same information we had previously learned. The only difference between this and what we’ve seen before is that the story was told by an indigenous woman, however we have already heard various stories about indigenous women and their relationships to the land that they live on. The film was long and drawn out and did not present much information as it just documented people’s opinions and experiences. The only new information that I found interesting and useful was when the locals explained how they were tricked by corporations into signing over their property for only $10-$25 when many of these people were unable to read or write at all. This film was an emotionally driven film, which works in some cases however I personally was not moved by it.