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six degrees could change the world directed by Ron Bowman narrated by Alec Baldwin  The title gives the first clue as to how much the writers, director and National Geographic believe in their hypothesis in Six Degrees. It should have been called ‘Six Degrees Is Going to Destroy the World Really Soon If We Don’t Do Something About It Right Now’. Maybe they would have had something more enlightening, or at least motivating, to add to the climate change consciousness. There are glimmers of hope in the film, but they are abandoned in the light of false hopes and impossible dreams, leaving us with nothing but despair for the planet. The format is the familiar doomsday countdown scenario – one degree, two degrees, and so on. We are shown numerous simulated scenarios of what our world will look like as it gets hotter. It is narrated, somewhat indifferently, by Alec Baldwin. His tone is consistently sceptical throughout the show. He could have become the greenhouse gas Darth Vader and really scared us (he has that potential in his voice and I’m sure James Earle Jones would agree) but he toed the line as the script called for. He took the benign, Nat Geo approach and told us our world was coming to an end in much the same way as our parents would tell us that if we wanted to borrow their car we’d have to fill it with gas. It’s a pretty scary subject, and it could have used a little amplification from the narration. On the plus side, the precision of his pronunciation was impressive. Now, those glimmers of hope I mentioned having while watching this film: It actually mentions the impact of cheese burgers, those being the average of three that every American eats every week, on our atmosphere. This is set against the irony of severely overweight ranchers struggling to water their herd. Of course, only carbon emissions are covered but it was encouraging to see the consumption of meat getting the blame for something evil. Six Degrees comes up short of Howard Lyman-esque diatribe and instead politely suggests that Americans could eat one less cheeseburger a week and thus better justify driving their Hummer H2s and Hemi-powered family sedans. This while the researcher who has calculated the carbon foot print of all that fast food is seen chowing down on a cheeseburger himself (and then sleeping it off in the restaurant booth). No one said ‘eat less meat of all kinds and we stand a slim chance of reversing some of the damage’. Nope, the scientists themselves are too attached to their comfortable lifestyles to say that. Science knows there is more money to be made from appearing to solve problems than actually solving the problems. One of the main presenters is an English scientist who gives us, the human race, less than ten years to make serious changes to the way we live in order to prevent a world-killing catastrophe. It’s a compelling appeal. It’s also rather melancholic, as we humans don’t have a glacier’s chance in Greenland of actually aligning our initiatives enough to do anything in time, especially if we can’t give up our cheeseburgers. A particularly ominous warning of things to come, as pointed out in this film in one of its moments of strongest poignancy, is the disappearance of the Himilayan glacier at the head of the Ganges River. What’s going to happen to a country of a billion people all clambering to keep up to the Joneses over in America when the source of their water, and their spiritual core dries up? It’s going to be painfully indicative of what’s going to happen to the other five sixths of the Earth’s population not long after. Six Degrees does offer a few helpful hints for saving the world, such as turning off idling electronics that create so called ‘vampire loads’ and better insulating our homes. Nothing much is mentioned about cars other than their efficiency needs to double its average from 15 m.p.g. to 30 m.p.g. Both my cars average more than 30 m.p.g. together, in the worst possible conditions. National Geographic clearly does not want ruffle any feathers over at the oil companies. They do suggest we build more windmills, however. And gigantic flood gates to protect New York City from storm surges. There’s even a somewhat humorous segment – though it’s intended to be very serious business in the film – about a modern day snake oil salesman who’s selling the idea of preparedness when the disaster hits. He is seen walking around New York City at night carrying a survival backpack and wearing some kind of giant wrist watch. It comes off as a corny moment, not to belittle the idea of preparedness. I, myself, have a disaster-pack ready to go in case the apocalypse comes early. The guy is seen packing his home-in-a-bag, complete with all important Ramen noodles and a small pry bar to open the numerous windows and doors he’ll have to get himself through. How’s he going to deal with the rioting hordes of people that aren’t prepared? What’s he going to do about the person who will likely shoot him with a gun and take his Ramen noodles? The film ends with a bunch of scientists in Europe attempting to make a fusion reactor. We are told that this might be the answer to our problems. We are then told that there won’t be a functioning fusion reactor that can produce electricity for fifty years. This is not more than ten minutes after a rather glum, defeated scientific chap has told us that unless we completely change the way the entire world makes and uses power by 2015, we’re done for. That’s a heck of a mixed message. In fact, the film closes with the statement that scientists don’t know what the future holds if the average temperature rises by six degrees, and they don’t want to find out. Right, thanks! Great! If the greatest minds are all sticking their heads in the sand, how are we supposed to feel good about installing compact fluorescents and going veg? My conclusion: don’t waste too much energy watching this film. Walk to the video store to rent it and watch it on your laptop computer. Six Degrees Could Change the World reviewed by Trev: veganunderground.com, May 20, 2008 who killed the electric car?  I remember being excited when I first read about the GM EV-1 being on the road. At the same time there were a bunch of small companies building electric cars – and they were fast. It was all looking so promising. But then, the EV-1 faded from view and the SUV era came crashing through the automotive world. And it hasn’t stopped. Cars, on average, are less fuel efficient than they were 20 years ago. So what happened? Who killed the electric car? Who do you think? The film doesn’t just answer the question, but tries to understand the oily machinations behind it all. It’ll make you look at hydrogen fuel cells and hybrids in a new way. Europe will see an electric car go on sale next year that could reopen the floodgates and stop the onslaught of the gas guzzlers once and for all. I, for one, will be eagerly watching the rise of the smart EV and hoping for its success. One of the best things about the film is how it captures the human story behind the EV-1. People really loved the car, loved what it stood for and were really hurt when it was yanked out from under them. It coulda’ been a contender. Highly recommended. reviewed by Trev: veganunderground.com, December 30, 2006 darwin's nightmare directed by Hubert Sauper  It could be your nightmare too, if its message is not heeded. While the film examines the ecological and economic disaster of the Nile perch, a species that Lake Victoria, Tanzania, was stocked with in 1954 and that subsequently wiped out every other species in the lake causing its own populations to start imploding, it is a poignant example of the carelessness with which humans meddle with our environment. The film spends a great deal of screentime on the human stories within the Nile perch economy. It presents a fascinating cast of characters that could have stepped out of Casablanca. Highly recommended.  reviewed by: Trev, veganunderground.com, December 30, 2006 earthlings directed by Shaun Monson narrated by Joaquin Phoenix
My DVD copy of Earthlings, Shaun Monson’s award-winning documentary, sat on my desk for almost a month before I mustered up the courage to watch it. The viewing date was planned, and my wife and I sat down with a couple of glasses of wine (to dampen the blow – it didn’t help) and watched it straight through. I have heard that many people watch it in pieces, or can’t finish watching it, but I think it’s very important to see the whole film. A film, afterall, is a beginning, middle and end, not just a collection of scenes. You need the whole picture, as presented by Monson, to understand the magnitude of his point and his purpose. It seems almost wrong to write about the technical apsects of this film, because of the importance of its message, but it’s vital to remember that the weight of the message thrust upon us is due in large part to the filmmaker. In an associative documentary, the ordering and juxtapositioning of scenes is how the story and its message are constructed. It is the filmmaker’s hand, however transparent to the viewer. The spine on which the scenes are hung, is the narration. Earthlings starts with a postulation that the human practice of speciesism is the root cause of our mistreatment of the animal kingdom. Monson compares it quite effectively to racism and sexism. We are treated to historical footage showing humans treating other humans in much the same manner as we treat modern food animals. 1950s race riots and Nazi concentration camps are compared to the Spanish Festival of the Bulls and factory farms in America. If you have difficulty seeing the parallel, the widening shot of the immense cattle feedlot will help convince you that these are valid comparisons. Earthlings is then divided into 5 main parts, pets, food, clothing, entertainment and science. Each part is further broken down into the main target areas of activism. It is especially effective to start with pets, as they are closest contact we have to living species other than our own. It then moves on to the aspects of animal exploitation in our lives as they rank in our ascendance of needs. This is an effective structure because the subject matter is so vast, and so overwhelming, that a more complex structure would lose the viewer and leave them in a state of bloodsoaked listlessness. The film ends by bringing us back to the beginning and delivering an ominous admonition about our likely future as a species. It asks what animals did to deserve this treatment from humans. This question is visually represented throughout the film with devastating effect. The narration is exquisitely written. It is the perfect combination of intelligence, simplicity and bluntness. Monson used quotes to illustrate the bredth and depth in history of his point of view, and it’s blended in to his own writing seemlessly. Joaquin Phoenix is the perfect choice of narrator for a few reasons. Obviously, he’s a well-known star, but there’s more to it than that. The quality of his voice matches the sombre subject matter. You can hear Phoenix’s emotional connection to, and his belief in, the subject, without it ever being so evident as to be overbearing or too colourful. Finally, the soundtrack is Moby at his best, probably because of his connection to the cause. The music of Earthlings is an unwavering shoulder to cry on, never abandoning us during the film, but never letting us off the hook by looking away either. This is as skillfull as any documentary I’ve seen in recent years, and far more impactful than any I’ve ever seen. What did Earthlings mean to me, personally? What did Earthlings do to me? What did Earthlings bring to my life, and my journey as a vegan? I pondered these questions for several silent moments after it ended, while our dog licked the tears from my wife’s face. Then I picked up my journal and started writing. Our dog, a rescue from the Los Angeles County SPCA, could have been that puppy scooped up from the curbside. His mother could easily have been one of the frightened dogs cowering from the animal control officers. The pet section hit very close to home and I was simultaneously so thankful that we rescued our dog from certain euthanasia, and confused by my selfish urge to have a pet and keep it captive. The pet section hit hard, hit first and perhaps numbed me a bit to what I was going to see next. Or so I thought. The sheer cruelty displayed by the people in this film is astounding. Then you realize that hundreds of thousands of people take part in this violence every minute of every day. I noted that all of the slaughterhouse, and factory farm workers were overweight. Their behaviour was either mindlessly mechanical, emotionally detached or enraged to the point of frenzy. Whether calmly slitting throats of conscious animals or stomping chickens, hoisting dogs into the gas chamber or beating circus elephants with gaff hooks, electrocuting a fox or beating pigs to death with pipe wrenches, the effect was the same. These people no longer had emotion, they couldn’t. They must be dead inside. They were all caught in the same mechanism of evil and death that was so perfectly, and disturbingly represented by the kosher cow killing machine. That humans can shield themselves from the wholesale cruelty seen in Earthlings is unbelieveable. That humans can delude themselves to the point of consuming the produce of death, and thus assuring their own destruction as a species is so contrary to the laws of nature, that I didn’t want to believe it was happening. As I watched Earthlings, I felt my own defence mechanisms kicking in. When the numbness wore off at one of the section breaks, I just hated myself that I ever took part in it, if only by consumption. But the human penchant for self destruction isn’t contrary to nature’s law. This film makes this point. We are going to reap what we sow. We are going to pay, and with interest. Nature is selecting us for extinction by the only mechanism it has against us – disease. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, food-borne bacteria, species-jumping pandemics, you name it. We are goners, and the rest of the animal kingdom won’t miss us. After watching Earthlings, I’m not even sad about it. One of the reasons we turn away from films like Earthlings, and prevent ourselves from seeing the truth, is our learned blindness to the near-future and near-past. Industrial food production and commercial food marketing and packaging have removed this vital connection from us. We see what’s on our plate right now. We see some ideal, optimistic, faraway future, or dire, barren distant future. We see a glorious past called the “good ol’ days”, or wretched past we’re doomed to repeat. We never see where the food was a month before the plate, or a year. We never see what will happen to us as a result of what’s on our plates five, ten, or twenty years into the future. Earthlings is the near-past. It’s what we collectively spend billions and billions of dollars not to see. This movie destroyed me. I am haunted by images, by questions. What did the animals do to deserve this? Earthlings asks this question in the eyes of every tortured, dying animal, whether it’s a downer cow or pig, a chimpanzee in a lab, or a fur farm wolf cub that’s been skinned alive – and still alive. Perhaps our species is saying what the eyes of these animals seem to be saying – put me out of my misery, I just want to die. We will reap what we sow. Watching Earthlings was a milestone in my journey as a vegan. It reminded me that I’m only at the beginning. I’m only just at the first fold in the path. I have so much growing to do. The film also reminded me that six months of not eating animals likely has not made a dent in my karma. I must do more. Earthlings should be a vegan rite of passage. It’s too easy even for vegans to avert their eyes and not see. It is so important to see. For every meat eater who sees this film, a battle surely has been won. Yes, it’s hard. Life is not supposed to be easy. It is, by nature’s law, a difficult path for every living creature, every single earthling. We are all meant to fight for our right to survival. Find the movie, find the courage. Watch it.
reviewed by: Trev, veganunderground.com, November 24, 2006 |
