The shots are downright haunting. A heavy fog hangs over the Lower Ninth Ward. The homes that still stand are at odd angles, as if in a cartoon. The rest of them are in ruins, debris spread across the roads and yards. The images would, in fact, be beautiful if we didn't know how much carnage was behind them.

The Axe in the Attic is one of many documentary films to tackle the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina and the federal government's inadequate response to it. It is a testament to the epic scope of this tragedy that there are so many stories to be told; Spike Lee's four-hour When The Levees Broke is the standard-bearer, and even that film left plenty out. So many lives were touched and devastated by the storm (and its aftermath) that there is an urgency to Katrina stories that has not faded in the years since the storm.

Directors Ed Pincus and Lucia Small traveled South in the months following the hurricane, finding those displaced by the storm and asking them to tell their stories. They stop in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kentucky, and Alabama on their way to Louisiana, talking to those whose lives were changed forever in August of 2005, and then head home through Austin, Texas, where they witness a frustrating encounter with FEMA bureaucracy.

Many of those interviews are just heartbreaking--these are strong, sturdy people, and they have just about been destroyed by forces far beyond their control. Their stories are moving and disheartening, and I found much of my bitterness and anger over the response to that storm coming back for a return visit. In those scenes, in recording those stories for posterity, The Axe in the Attic is an important, valuable film.

But Pincus and Small made a fatal miscalculation early on in the project. Instead of letting these people speak for themselves, the directors chose to make The Axe in the Attic a first-person documentary, filtering the story through their experience of making the film. They share voice-over duties, blanketing the film in stilted narration, and Pincus explains early on, "when you're two white Northerners heading South, remaining behind the camera just doesn't feel like an option." To which this viewer replied, "Why not?"

Because the sad truth is, it should have been an option. In its released form, the film feels like a first cut; it is in dire need of more judicious editing that better shapes the film, and the first-person stuff should have been the first thing to go. Many minutes of the film are burned away by Pincus and Small discussing (to each other, from either side of the camera, and in voice-over) the moral and ethical dilemmas they're suffering through, the agonizing decision of whether to remain objective. It's not that these aren't worthwhile questions; they are. But they should have been discussed off-camera.

Not everyone can pull a Nick Broomfield and make a movie about making the movie--more importantly, not everyone should, and certainly not when dealing with a topic this important. To put yourself in your own movie crying, as if there's any equivalency between what you're going through and what your subjects have been through, is just plain crass. The ethical journey of the filmmakers would have made for a splendid featurette on the DVD; to make it a part of the film proper was a mistake.

Video:

The Axe in the Attic was shot on HD video, a fact betrayed by the occasional aliasing around the edges. Aside from that complaint, however, the 1.78:1 anamorphic image looks quite good; the picture is clear and well-defined, with accurate skin tones (a frequent issue for digital docs) and a minimum of noise. The image gets a little muddy in some on-the-fly, underlit scenes, but that's to be expected in a documentary.

The disc's 2.0 audio track gets the job done; interviews are clear and audible, apparently recorded with good microphones (a luxury that more and more digital docs are choosing to bypass). The occasional music cues are well-mixed and never distract from the narration and interviews.

IndiePix has loaded up the disc with plenty of special features. First up is an Audio Commentary with directors Pincus and Small. It's heavy on the details and particularly on the analysis (these two take themselves very seriously), but the track is a little dry for casual viewers. Eleven Extended & Deleted Scenes follow, only available for individual play (with no "play all" option). Many of them are fairly interesting; indeed, one wonders why these were excluded but so much of the filmmaker-confessional stuff made it in.

Next we have two Short Films: Fast Women, Slow Horses (10:18) and Lower Ninth Ward (8:06). Both were clearly shot during the production of the film proper but plucked out as stand-alone shorts (though some of the latter film made its way into that extraordinary opening sequence); both are worth a look.

Their Interactive Map of Journey is also included; this viewer-navigated text and image feature shows each of their stops and the people they met there. The film's Theatrical Trailer (1:41) follows, wisely de-emphasizing the first-person elements. Two informative question and answer sessions with audiences follow: a Q&A Session at the New Orleans Film Festival (10:52), which includes residents who were part of the film, and a Q&A Session at Harvard School of Public Health (12:06), which is obviously a bit more academic.

Trailers for six of IndiePix's other releases close out the special features.

The testimonials of the displaced and the unflinching view of a community torn apart make The Axe in the Attic a valuable, and often powerful, historical document. But the poor editorial choices of its filmmakers dilute the power of these words and images. It's definitely worth a rental, but it has the feel of a missed opportunity for greatness.

Jason lives in New York. He holds an MA in Cultural Reporting and Criticism from NYU.