The filmmaker and the writer of 40 Views of Water both live in New Orleans, Louisiana, whose flooding following the collapse of defective levees and subsequent forced evacuation of its citizens inspired the film. Since there are no models in the canons of American literature and film for the depiction of the destruction of an entire city, the story of that migration and extended exile from home demands the invention of narrative forms appropriate to this unique catastrophe. The film tries to find a narrative in a meditation on the liquid state. In just forty sentences of narration and their accompanying images, 40 Views of Water seeks to express the sense of disorientation, journey, and sheltering we New Orleanians experienced after the levees fell.