The Layers of Eve's Bayou

Eve’s Bayou used had a lot of layers of meaning and unique story-telling components. Though the film is shot using many of the conventional cues that other films use, and audiences have learned to associate with certain things, like the scenes with voodoo, cued by rattling noises and common images of witchcraft or fortune-telling,

there is also an element of originality. For instance, the filmmaker often fills in the story or plot with flashes of supernatural visibility. This element of the supernatural, or Voodoo, is a powerful influencer throughout the movie, not only as a way for the filmmaker to advance or sway the viewer’s thoughts or supply necessary information, but also within the movie and for the characters, making it both diegetic and non-diegetic. 

Both Mozelle, the aunt of Eve, and Eve herself, have strange moments of supernatural insight. Eve’s is often implied in her expressions or her actions, while Mozelle’s visions are typically completely revealed as scenes in the film. The two’s connection in the film and their interactions imply this sense of generational-passing-down of voodoo abilities. The imagery and the visual choices of the filmmaker are creating a lot implicit meaning, but also there seems to be a strong use of symptomatic meaning also. The film suggests things culturally and regionally about the area where the film takes place and the people, as well as about certain themes like betrayal, deception and unfaithfulness. 

The creation of secrets and the prompting of characters to keep one another’s secrets is used as a motif in the film. There are complicated layers of secret keeping and character dynamics through these confidences going on in the movie. If we drew a diagram illustrating the secrets Eve would be the trunk, her family the branches.