Katrina's other casualties

There are still so many untold/unknown stories connected to the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. If you have or have ever owned a pet I guarantee that just reading the following review of the documentary "Mine" will cause you to choke up. (GW)

Four-Legged Survivors of Hurricane Katrina

By Manohla Dargis
New York Times
January 15, 2010

One from the heart, the documentary “Mine” relates yet one more wrenching, infuriating story about Hurricane Katrina and the devastation wreaked both by the storm and by human error and indifference. While many victims in the movie will look familiar — whether waving from their New Orleans rooftops after the levees broke in 2005 or talking about their ruined lives and homes afterward — the majority of the victims here have usually been seen only in the background, forlornly howling and wagging their tails.

Directed by Geralyn Pezanoski, making a fine feature debut, “Mine” tells the story of the pets, mostly dogs and cats, left behind during the storm when their humans were forced to flee. Like much of the rest of the world, Ms. Pezanoski followed the news in horror as a natural disaster morphed into a larger catastrophe. What caught her eye, however, and clearly also her emotions, were the impromptu animal-rescue teams that sprang into action and, from across America, descended on New Orleans. She flew to the inundated city and with a small team spent six weeks following rescuers as they broke into homes, clambering through windows and crawl spaces to save masses of frightened, starving animals.

Smartly, Ms. Pezanoski didn’t stop shooting once the waters retreated and the excitement and political controversy died down. Realizing that the rescued animals were now separated from companions who were scattered around the country and, importantly, were at first forbidden to return to New Orleans (and their pets), she kept her attention fixed and her digital video camera running. Those who tracked this story know what happened next, which doesn’t lessen its impact. By the time some New Orleans pet owners returned to the city, their animals had been shipped out of state, where they were sometimes placed in foster homes and even adopted. New Orleans residents like Malvin Cavalier, a dapper octogenarian who made a jaunty pair with his fluffy white dog, Bandit, were robbed of their homes and closest friends.

Go ahead and get a tissue to wipe your tears. I did. “Mine” isn’t fully successful — it’s a bit ragged and, at 81 minutes, far too short for the scope of its ambitions — but it’s smart, sincere and affecting. The emotional impact deepens as Ms. Pezanoski begins to narrow her focus, interviewing residents like Mr. Cavalier, along with Jessie Pullins and Gloria Richardson, two other pet owners who were separated from their animals. Mr. Pullins named his cute mutt J. J., as in Jessie Jr., and hangs onto memories of his dog as if the animal were hope itself. Ms. Richardson is an elderly woman who was forcibly removed from her home, even after she insisted on not being separated from her Labrador, Murphy Brown. (All the separation stories are about dogs.)

As is true of every Katrina story, race and class play significant roles in “Mine,” which grows more disturbing as the weeks melt into years. The animal rescue world can be an eccentric battlefield, a place where pets matter more than their people, and Ms. Pezanoski registers its admirable and unsettling elements fairly. When a white lawyer chides a black woman for abandoning her dog — the woman says she had her hands full rescuing her children and wheelchair-bound mother — it’s hard not to flash back to those commentators who wondered why the poor inhabitants of New Orleans didn’t just leave in their nonexistent cars. Ms. Pezanoski can only offer a gloss on this world of pain, but she does so with compassion and admirable patience.