So, it is highly admirable that The Condor and the Eagle seeks to empower voices from all over the planet. Guerra and Parras spent the last two years travelling from indigenous community to indigenous community, chronicling how corporate greed, lax government standards, and environmental racism have done irreparable harm to each. As noted during one answer, there is no European voice speaking over the subjects or much in the way of scientific discussion about potential technological solutions - the film is almost pure appeal to emotion, and I think it benefits from taking this route. When faced with the injustice of multiple corporations burying oil spills and dump sites they've been ordered to clean beneath shallow mounds of earth, or the repeating refrain of segments focused on the fight to overturn a pipeline's construction or halt a city counsel's decision to give a local polluter a major tax break ending with a card noting how these colossal efforts still ended in failure, it is good and right to strike somewhere deeper than logical thought. It is also good and right to focus that strike on a sense of togetherness, of letting the world know there are still millions who are disenfranchised by this climate violence in a myriad spread of ways (there's a brief but impactful segment about how the construction of a drilling facility on native land strongly correlated with the rise of women disappearing and turning up dead), and in spite of what I am about to say, encouraging the people to focus their own efforts on maintaining those bonds and not letting outside forces splinter their movement or weaken their resolve is a great message to make your take-away, both in the film and in the discussion afterwards.
However, looking at The Condor and the Eagle as a documentary like any other I might see, I do not think this enough. All respect due to Guerra and Parras for wanting to keep the mood light with the supporting animations and their focus on unity, but artificially accelerated climate change IS, as they note, a really big problem that we are running out of time on. Though I am sure they work closely with and support plenty of people who give their all to make a substantial difference through on-the-ground, in-the-courthouse-and-legislature political activism, this is not much reflected in the film. I'm glad we get to see so many communities, but as with Always In Season a few days ago, I wish many were on-screen longer. I understand the impulse to keep things light so as not to cause the audience despair, but more causes we're shown are lost than won, and the utter devastation of the losses accelerates the problem far more than the often-temporary victories brake it. If we are to appeal to emotion here, we SHOULD lean into the dark, the depressing, the despairing, and we should come out the other side ANGRY. If one is to speak on so large a stage about climate change, there should be far more than "Stick it out, keep doing what you're doing, and we'll beat this thing!" There should be outrage, horror, a sickened tour through these ills, many a montage of hidden polluted pits and devastated towns and corporations getting away with it all. There should be a direct, specific call to action motivated by how fucking furious we are that the battle is speeding towards a total loss for all players because the opposition refuses to budge unless we do more.
Understand, the film already contains ample amounts of what I describe, in the form of news clips and interviews with passionate activists and numerous vistas ruined by the site of a flaming smokestack in the uncomfortably-close distance. The problem, as I see it, is one of overarching tone. I already had my misgivings when the film ended on a series of protests that transitioned into an animation of hands from the north and south uniting around a broken earth and healing all the damage in an instant, but I could chalk this up to visual shorthand. Listening to the Q&A session and hearing Guerra discuss his intentions for the film, I think there is simply a fundamental difference in how we view the purpose of documentary filmmaking about so massive a subject as climate change. He wants to get away from the pessimistic views of other climate change docs and focus on the positives of human interaction, I think it dreadfully vital to emphasize the looming danger above all else. And he and his co-director wife Sophie has very much done both in this film, but their lack of specificity and his (if I may be so bold as to characterize it as such) somewhat dodgy approach to answering questions about actualizing concrete plans for change on a widespread scale make it fairly clear to me he never had any intention of going where I think his documentary might have become most impactful.
This is fine. As said, it is a difference in philosophies, one clearly not shared by the audience members around me, who were very audibly (and visibly, once the lights came up) impacted by the experience. There are those who already do far more than I to spread awareness who thought this great, those who simply came out to see a documentary with its creators in tow who thought it great, those with direct ties to the communities depicted who thought it great, and in the end all of their reactions matter more than the that of some dweeb with a blog. I desire righteous anger and withering, difficult-to-stomach runtimes from documentaries about subjects I think deserving of righteous anger and marathon audience pummelings, and Guerra and Parras and all the other people who are there on the ground think a lighter touch better. All good, all fair. This being a space for reviews and myself being a critic in this space, however, requires me to push my own opinion at least a little, and to my mind, The Condor and the Eagle packs some serious wallops throughout, yet overall takes too light, "get out there and march" over directly suggesting tangible actions worthy of the crisis' severity approach to ascend beyond a good first-time work. If the planet is indeed changing because of the actions of the wealthy and powerful at a rate that will not sustain modern human society as we know it, if not human life period at so rapid a rate, it DESERVES every available documentarian bellowing with shredded vocal cords from the rooftops for immediate, radical action.
And just so I avoid the risk of hypocrisy:
DO NOT TOLERATE THIS NONSENSE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD, ANY OF YOU, INDIGINEOUS OR OTHERWISE. HELL, INDIGENOUS FOLKS AND MULTIPLE OTHER MINORITY GROUPS ACROSS THE COUNTRY ARE ALREADY MOBILIZED. SO THIS IS PROBABLY BETTER ADDRESSED TO ANYONE IN A RACIAL, ECONOMIC, OR SPIRITUAL MAJORITY. MARCHING AND PROTESTING IS ONLY THE FIRST STEP. ORGANIZE. FIND THOSE IN YOUR COMMUNITY WHO CAN MAKE THE COMPLEX LEGAL AND SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES AT PLAY EASY FOR THE MASSES TO UNDERSTAND, FORM A REGULAR, WELL-ORGANIZED GROUP DEDICATED TO STOPING THE PIPELINES AND REFINERIES AND DRILLING PLATFORMS AND WHATEVER ELSE IS COMING YOUR WAY, AND FIGHT THEM IN THE COURTS. IF FUNDS RUN SHORTS, DO ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER TO SCROUNGE MORE - DONATION DRIVES, CHARITY EVENTS, APPEALS TO THE SYMPATHETIC MONIED IN YOUR COMMUNITY, ANYTHING. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE GOOD LAWYERS, ARE ABLE TO ATTEND ALL RELEVANT MEETINGS, AND SPEAK FIRMLY IF THE BATTLE GOES SOUTH AND YOU STILL TRULY BELIEVE THIS IS WRONG, DO NOT ALLOW IT TO BE BUILT AS LONG AS YOU CAN. APPEAL TO HIGHER AUTHORITIES, CHECK WITH YOUR LOCAL MUNICIPAL AND COUNTY OFFICES ON THE REGULAR TO FIND ANY VIOLATIONS THE CONTRACTORS COMMIT AND JUMP ON THEM LIKE SHARKS. BLOCK CONSTRUCTION PHYSICALLY IF YOU MUST, BUT DO NOT ENDANGER YOURSELVES OR THE WORKERS ASSIGNED BY THE REAL ENEMY TO DO THE JOB.
BEYOND THIS, VOTE. VOTE FOR POLITICIANS AND POLICIES AND RESOLUTIONS THAT WILL HURT THE POLLUTERS MOST. IF ANY POLITICIAN YOU VOTE INTO OFFICE DOES NOT KEEP THEIR PROMISES VIS A VIS CLIMATE CHANGE (OR VIS A VIS ANYTHING REALLY BUT WE'VE GOT A FOCUS HERE), HARANGUE THEM ON THAT AND DO YOUR BEST TO HOLD THEM TO THEIR WORD UNTIL THEY DO WHAT YOU VOTED FOR THEM TO DO, OR LEAVE OFFICE. IF AN OPPOSING CANDIDATE WINS AND DOES NOT TAKE ACTION, STILL TAKE THEM TO TASK - JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE LESS LIKELY TO LISTEN DOES NOT MEAN ONE SHOULD LEAVE THEM BE. IF YOU ARE IN GOVERNMENT YOURSELF AT EVEN A LOCAL LEVEL, WORK TO MAKE SURE LEGISLATION AND RESOLUTIONS ARE INTRODUCED THAT WILL FURTHER REGULATE NEGATIVELY-IMPACTFUL CONSTRUCTION AND POLLUTIVE PRACTICES IN YOUR AREA. IF YOU HAVE THE FINANCIAL CAPACITY, KNOWLEDGE-BASE, AND WHEREWITHAL TO RUN FOR OFFICE YOURSELF, DO THAT. BUT SERIOUSLY, SINCE IT'S THE OPTION MOST READILY AVAILABLE TO THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION, VOTE. AND WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT, FIGHT AGAINST PRACTICES THAT KEEP THE MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES MOST IMMEDIATELY AND WORST IMPACTED BY CLIMATE CHANGE FROM EASILY VOTING TOO.
JUST... I DON'T WANT TO PUT DOWN THE PRACTICES OF MARCHING AND PROTESTING, BECAUSE GETTING VISIBILITY INCREASED AND REACHING OUT TO A LARGER POPULATION WHO WOULD OTHERWISE NOT TUNE IN IS A NOBLE, WORTHWHILE GOAL ALL ON ITS OWN. BUT AS I SAY, IF THIS REALLY IS AS TERRIBLE AS THE WORST STORIES MAKE IT OUT TO BE, AND BELIEVE ME, IT IS, THEN DIRECT ACTION LIKE THIS IS THE BEST. AND I AIN'T REALLY THE PERSON TO LAY OUT THE PERFECT TWELVE-STEP PLAN FOR GETTING SHIT DONE, I'M JUST SOME GUY WHO'S WRITING THIS IN A SINGLE ACTIVE BUST NEAR MIDNIGHT IN A TUCSON HOTEL ROOM, BUT I HONESTLY FEEL LIKE SOMETHING TO THIS TUNE WAS NECESSARY IN THE CONDOR AND THE EAGLE, EVEN IF GUERRA FELT A LIGHTER APPROACH WAS BETTER. HE COULD'VE ACHIEVED THAT AND PROVIDED THIS INFORMATION, NO NEED TO GET INTO MY PREFERRED DOOM AND GLOOM APPROACH. DO SHIT THAT HITS WHERE IT HURTS AND REFUSE TO TAKE "NO" OR "MAYBE LATER" OR "YEAH BUT ALSO NO" AS ANSWERS.
And after all that!
3.5/5
Night!
No comments:
Post a Comment