Actress Kasi Lemmons made an auspicious debut as a writer and director with this delicately handled, wrenchingly emotional drama, hailed by critic Roger Ebert as one of the best films of 1997. Eve's Bayou begins with ominous narration: "The summer I killed my father, I was 10 years old." From that point the story moves backward in time and memory to Louisiana in 1962, when a young girl named Eve (Jurnee Smollett) witnesses a shocking act on the part of her womanizing father (Samuel L. Jackson). But what really happened? And can Eve be certain about what she saw when there is more than one interpretation of the facts? Less a mystery than a study of deeply rooted emotions rising to the surface to affect an entire family, the film has the quality of classic Southern literature, with layers of memory unfolding to reveal a carefully guarded truth. Barely seen during its theatrical release, this lushly photographed film deserves to be rediscovered on digital video disc. --Jeff Shannon
(16 votes)
2.
The secrets that hold us together can also tear us apart.
Summer heats up in rural Louisiana beside Eve's Bayou as the Bastiste family tries to survive the secrets they've kept and the betrayals they've endured.
Loius Bastiste, the local town doctor with a special bedside manner, is a loving father and a philandering husband. His wife Roz is forced to admit her family is falling apart when her young daughter, Eve, witnesses one of her father's infidelities. Struggling to make sense of what she has seen, Eve turns to her older sister Cisely, who dismisses her in fear of the truth, and then to her Aunt Mozelle, a known pschic and rumored black widow. Unable to find the understanding she is looking for, Eve decides to take matters into her own hands. As the heat rises so does the tension. For the Batiste family, the ties that bind may not be strong enough to keep them together, and what they learn will change their lives forever.
(14 votes)
3.
A father's philandering nature is only one of several problems for a black southern family, but, to 9 year-old Eve, it is the most immediate. As her suspicions deepen, so does her desire to bring the infidelity to an end, even if it means calling down justice on its perpetrator. A stylish, southern Gothic tale of family discord and coming of age by first-time writer/director Lemmons.
(16 votes)
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