On the northern edge of New Orleans' French Quarter, on Rampart Street near Congo Square and Louis Armstrong Park, there's a homeless shelter called Covenant House.
It's been there since 1984, and its mission is to care for runaway, homeless and at-risk young people. You can be 20 and bunk at Covenant House, but you age out at 22. The people who work there hope that by then you'll be able to make your way in the world.
But the people who work there know that's hardly a certain--and probably not even a likely--outcome. For most of the kids who come through their door are badly damaged, suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, from physical and/or sexual abuse. Many of them are bipolar or paranoid schizophrenic. Most of them self-medicate with street drugs and alcohol. Heartbreakingly, some of them have children of their own.
Most of us are lucky not to know much about these sorts of kids; while their existence might be suggested by news items or brief encounters with young panhandlers, it's easy enough to look straight ahead and keep moving. We might rationalize that we can't save them with our pocket change or a fast food supper and a lecture. It's better to write a check to a registered charity or a letter to a member of Congress than to try to engage the broken on their turf and terms. For what can we know of their world?
Brent and Craig Renaud, the Peabody Award-winning documentarian brothers from Little Rock who--among other things--helped found the Little Rock Film Festival and the Arkansas Motion Picture Institute, have made a movie about Covenant House. Shelter had its world premiere at the New Orleans Film Festival last night. (If you happen to be in or on your way to the city, the film will screen again Tuesday evening. Check the film festival's website neworleansfilmfestival.org for details.)
Shelter is, like all the Renauds' films, a rigorous and unflashy work of journalism that hews closely to the traditional model of direct cinema as practiced by D.A. Pennebaker, Frederick Wiseman and the Maysles brothers. (On a couple of occasions you can hear one of the off-camera Renauds ask a subject a simple question, and Amman Abbasi, the Little Rock-based filmmaker and musician who regularly collaborates with the Renauds, provides some music.) The idea is to be purely observational, to allow characters and situations to speak for themselves without any commentary.
The Renauds spent six months filming in and around the shelter, apparently with complete and unfettered access. We see conversations between clients and the staff, interactions between the kids and people on the streets of New Orleans, and solitary moments when they seem oblivious to the camera's gaze. Early on in the film we hear 17-year-old Taylor confess to a counselor her weariness with life.
"Sunday I just smoked beaucoup weed," she says. "Then Monday I'd just had enough ... I'm about to get a rig, I'm about to shoot up anything I can get my hands on, I just want to feel this ... needle, I want to see this blood draw back and I'm shoot it into my arm and if I miss, I ... miss and I hope I get a blood clot and die. I was just done."
We also meet Matthew, a shy but resourceful 17-year-old high school graduate who arrives in New Orleans only to find that his mother has moved and refuses to give him her new address. Shortly after arriving at Covenant House he manages to find a job, and we're left with the sense that he'll be able to overcome any obstacle. He stands in contrast to 18-year-old Daniel, who threatens to go back to living "in the woods" of Mississippi.
But the film's spinal narrative belongs to the winsome Liz, a charismatic 20-ish woman who Covenant House executive director Jim Kelly describes as the most damaged person ever to show up on their doorstep. She won't follow the shelter's rules--she doesn't want to stay overnight--but the staff makes allowances for her anyway, allowing her to come and go simply because she has no other alternative. While her mental illness is obvious, she "presents" as "relatively stable" which means the local hospitals won't keep her. A staff member says Liz wants to be free to travel--to find the mother who abandoned her when she was "4 or 6."
It takes seconds for Liz to swing from sweet hymn-singing innocence to belligerence.
"I've been homeless for three years and these people want to deny me a blanket," she tells the camera. "When I'm cold they need to just give me a blanket, that's all I ask for ... Don't deny me a blanket when I'm the real homeless person. You should bow down to me. 'Cause I'm homeless."
We see her get thrown out of a Catholic church for sleeping in the sanctuary, and later watch her menace bar patrons with a bottle. By the end of the film, she's been placed in a residential psychiatric clinic.
Some people might believe that it's relatively easy to make a film like Shelter, that all you really need to do is turn on your camera and get out of the way. But then a lot of people tend to think that what artists do is easy--at least for the artists. They think that musicians, writers, painters and the like are born with innate gifts that allow them to see and do things that ordinary people cannot. And maybe there is a little truth in this, for most of us understand what it is like to try but fail, to bump up against the limits of our competence. Without an empathetic guiding grace, Shelter could have been a blunt and brutal film--an exploitation of profoundly unlucky kids and those who try to care for them.
But it is the work of the artists to allow us experiences we wouldn't otherwise imagine. And the Renauds have once again given us a glimpse into the humanity of the invisible, constructing a connection to the dirty and desperate and despised. They allow their characters the dignity of telling, in their own words, how it is for them.
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
www.blooddirtangels.com
Editorial on 10/16/2016