Vanishing Pearls: The Oystermen of Pointe a la Hache
Film Review
by Kam Williams
Gulf Oil Spill Pits Black Fisherman vs. BP in David vs.
Goliath Documentary
On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater
Horizon, a drilling rig owned and operated by British Petroleum (BP), exploded,
spilling over 50 million barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico before it was
finally capped weeks later. In June, President Obama announced that the company
had set aside $20 billion in cash designated to help those deleteriously affected
by the ecological disaster.
Kenneth Feinberg’s law firm, which
had previously handled the distribution of the September 11th Victim
Compensation Fund, was retained at a rate of $850,000/month to handle the BP
one also. Although the TV commercials running in the company’s highly-saturated
PR campaign would have you believe that it was contrite and committed to
undoing any damage, truth be told, that carefully-cultivated corporate image
bore little relation to how it was actually treating many of the victims
seeking restitution.
Take, for example, Pointe
a la Hache, an African-American enclave located in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.
For generations, the men of that Gulf shore village of less than 300 had
supported their families by plying their trade as oyster fishermen. However,
the BP spill put the brothers out of business and by 2012 the tiny black
community had effectively been turned into a ghost town.
Its
little-known ordeal is the subject of Vanishing Pearls, a heartbreaking
documentary directed by Nailah Jefferson. The film retraces the blight visited
upon Pointe a la Hache by focusing primarily on the plight of a local leader
named Byron Encalade.
Mr.
Encalade was the owner of Encalade Fisheries, a family business which employed
his brother, his nephew and five of his cousins. In the wake of the spill, he
filed a claim and very patiently awaited a check from BP.
But when he
finally received a letter stating, “Your file is denied,” his whole world was
turned upside-down. Now, a proud provider who had never in his life looked to
the government for a handout suddenly found himself dependent on food stamps. His
relatives also needed help from friends, charities and subsidies to survive,
and had trouble understanding why no one cared about their predicament.
Meanwhile, Attorney
Feinberg, ostensibly running interference for the profit-driven polluter,
publicly stated “I see no evidence of anything other than fair treatment by BP.
I think they wanted to do the right thing, and they did.”
His
conclusion was a far cry from that of embittered Byron who lamented, “They’ve
destroyed us… The world must know what BP did to this community.” Sadly, the
devastation visited upon Pointe a la Hache is most likely a microcosm of a scenario
being played out again and again in working-class communities all along the Gulf Coast.
Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 80 minutes
Distributor: AFFRM
No comments:
Post a Comment