Eve's Bayou was emotional for me. I could not hold back tears as I sat there and watched this little girl go through all this pain and disappointment. It affected me so much that I was really sad on my way home. I was really sad for Eve. Here was the one man that she looked up to more than anyone. Her daddy, her hero the one she most looks up to, and he has completely shattered the image she had of him. 
The hardest part for Eve was that it is all based on her own gaze and what she saw purely by accident. The image of her daddy was shattered, shattered by something she was not supposed to see. When she saw her daddy "messin," that is something that will live in her memory for a long time. Understandably she tries to shake the image with the help of her sister Cisely, but like Eve narrates in the beginning, "Memory is a selection of images," Eve says, "Some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain." I think a lot of little girls feel this way about their daddy and once that vision of them has been broken, it is really hard to go back. It's really hard when families go through such turmoile. I know my daddy was not as "perfect" as I wanted him to be, but at least I did not have to see the imperfections with my own eyes.
Eve really did not want anything bad to happen to her daddy and wanted to protect him. For the most part people never really want anything bad to happen to a loved one, no matter what they have done. I know I always tried to protect my daddy because I always wanted to believe he was perfect . Eve finds out there are two sides to the story of the night between Cisely and her daddy. She was mad and disappointed but at the same time did not want anything to happen to him. Unfortunately, he is taken from Eve and the family in a tragic way. Once again, she watched it happen with her own eyes and will be a memory printed on her brain. But she will no longer have to watch him "messin" around.
Am I dating myself if I say I remember watching Debbi Morgan (Mozelle) as cute little dimpled Angie Hubbard on All My Children? Here are a few links:
Roger Ebert's Review of Eve's Bayou. He named it as the top film of 1997.
1 comment:
Although the movie is somewhat difficult to watch due to the emotional hardships, Eve comes off as a very strong and independent girl. Her father does inflict emotional distress, but instead of having an emotional breakdown, like her sister Cecily, Eve decides to take control of the situation and end the hurt that her father and inflicted.
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