Critics reviews

BAMcinemaFest’s revival movie is Kasi Lemon’s Eve’s Bayou (1997), one of the memorable feminist movies of that decade and never more resonant than it is today.

[Morgan's] ability to mine gravitas from farfetched plotlines and purple dialogue may have brought her closer to the core of Eve's Bayou than her celebrated co-stars could reach, and she seems wholly in her element when her new suitor, on learning of her infertility, vows to plant seeds in her heart. Where other performers would be thwarted by the treacle of the scene, Morgan plays it with surpassing professionalism, glowing like a woman who's waited all her life to hear the words.

The summer I killed my father I was ten years old, the narrator Eve Batiste says coolly. What follows is a Southern Gothic coming-of-age tale reminiscent of Tennessee Williams, but still quite unlike any film before or since... It remains a mesmerising, haunting film about memory, history and family.

Eve's Bayou is an especially remarkable melodrama about memory and the coming of age of young black girls. Lemmons gives each of the girls depth and agency, but the film has more in store for women than just the coming of age narrative.

An insanely ambitious debut, a period piece that dares to tackle such heady subjects as teenage sexual jealousy and filial rage -- plus a soupçon of voodoo for good measure -- and what's most surprising about it is that it's largely successful.