From there things get very tense within the family, a feeling that is only intensified by the movie’s flourishes of magical realism (yes, there is some voodoo introduced) and the atmospheric score by the great Terence Blanchard. Jurnee Smollett plays Eve, a young girl living in a wealthy African American community in Louisiana in the 1960s, who witnesses her father (Samuel L. Written and directed by the ridiculously talented Kasi Lemmons (as an actor you might remember her as Clarice’s roommate in “The Silence of the Lambs”), “Eve’s Bayou” shares elements with films like “Atonement,” but with a much greater specificity of the experience and with grander mythological implications.
One of the very best films of the 1990s and one of the most consistently overlooked (how Criterion hasn’t ponied up for a new restoration and an array of special features is truly baffling), “Eve’s Bayou” is available to stream right now and you should not miss your opportunity.
The 39 Best Movies on Amazon Prime (May 2022) Eve’s Bayou Trimark Pictures
