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Director William Hart’s documentary Lead and Copper tells a story many people know about the Flint, Michigan water crisis. But the narrative Hart weaves manages to do so both in a more macro-level context and in a deeply personal way. The problems in Flint are structural and political, but they’re also human, and the documentary tells that story on both levels. Arguably, the personal version is more effective.
The Flint water crisis was devastating because of all the people who were hurt, especially children. But what makes the story truly compelling is the resiliency of those same people. They are not victims. They are heroes. We see this with Janay Young, a Flint native and mother of two small children. She spends hours each day purifying water to bathe her daughter before bed.
Rather than giving up, moving away, or becoming bitter, she resolutely cares for her children each day, and by the end of the documentary, we see her volunteering to go into schools to teach other children how to care for their community.
Likewise, resident Leon El Alamin‘s family has been in Flint for generations. He’s faced violence, economic hardship, and a health crisis, but leaving is not an option he'll consider. He stays and fights to make the community better because Flint is his home. He wants it to be a better place for his son to grow up in.
Young and El Alamin’s stories represent thousands of others who love Flint and are committed to preserving their home.
But these people exist in complex political, social, and economic contexts that are often hard to understand. For example, Flint was facing a financial crisis before the water crisis. They had a reliable but expensive deal to buy water from Detroit, then Michigan elected a governor focused on balancing the budget at all costs. The documentary works well in the way it conveys how these external forces collided to create the perfect storm that led to the crisis.
But what the film also seeks to convey is that this collision of forces is more than a fluke. It’s a systemic, ever-present threat for impoverished people of color in America today. This is where the documentary is less graceful.
About two thirds of the way through the documentary, the narrative shifts to Newark, New Jersey, which had its own water crisis similar to Flint’s. We also learn that many underprivileged communities have faced a similar fate to Flint and Newark for various reasons, especially because they are made up of people who are often overlooked or forgotten in American society.
While the film is trying to make a big claim about the structural forces at play in local emergencies, the abrupt narrative shift from Flint to Newark and the very brief acknowledgement that it has happened in other cities feels disorganized and unfocused, rather than serving to solidify the claim it hopes to make.
The documentary also oversimplifies some political elements, such as the budget crisis that led to the water crisis. Viewers could benefit from knowing more about the broader political context rather than chalking it up to simple partisan ideology.
But the end of the film captures both the hope and despair it seeks to communicate. First, we see Janay Young speaking to a group of local third graders about the importance of caring for their community, displaying her resilience and hope about Flint’s future. A scientific expert quickly interrupts this image by reiterating the severity of the Flint water crisis. Finally, the documentary ends with a list of dozens of counties across the United States with unsafe levels of lead in their water system.
Lead and Copper may end on a hopeful note for Flint, but what about all of the other cities? While this documentary explains the Flint water crisis in an accessible way, which is hugely valuable, the film is disjointed at times. It seems unlikely to sway any viewers who don’t already agree with its conclusion.
The film is now streaming on digital platforms.
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