Déjà Vu. 2006. USA. Directed by Tony Scott. Screenplay by Bill Marsilii, Terry Rossio. With Denzel Washington, Val Kilmer, Paula Patton, Bruce Greenwood, Adam Goldberg, Jim Caviezel. 35mm. 126 min.
The first major feature film to shoot in New Orleans after the hurricane—and dedicated to the city, accordingly—Tony Scott and Denzel Washington’s sci-fi thriller is very much a capsule of its era: a time-crossing, near-mystical love story about terrorist violence, a city’s compounding trauma, and the far-reaching implications of the American surveillance state after 9/11. Embedded in the film’s cinematographic fireworks, heated cutting, and heightened emotions—all hallmarks of Scott’s early-aughts style—is a straightforward parable about the desire to change the past, reverse history, and undo catastrophic loss. On its surface, this is not a film about Hurricane Katrina. Yet much as New York films after 9/11 couldn’t avoid subtextual grace notes of the city’s traumatized psyche, Déjà Vu puts the soul of post-Katrina New Orleans keenly on display.