August 24, 2006
An Inconvenient Truth
D Davis Guggenheim, P Laurie David, Lawrence Bender - 2006, USA.
This documentary records Al Gore's global crusade against global warming. Clearly made for a Middle-America audience the film chronicles one of Al Gores lectures on the weighty subject that the world faces in relation to greenhouse gases. At the outset I wish to stress that this is clearly a subject worthy of discussion and I am in agreement with much of what Al Gore is arguing. However, while I liked the film a lot, I am not so sure that the style of film will work well with Australian or for that matter-non-US audiences in general. Al Gore has a clear way of speaking, but he is no David Suzuki.
So where does this film go wrong? Al Gore speaks well, and this is to be expected of someone who was Vice President, but he does not have the charisma of the man who was one level above him - Bill Clinton. (I won't comment here about the man he lost the Presidential race to, George W. Bush, suffice to say that the film shows great restraint in its depiction of Al Gores loss in Florida.) Furthermore, while he seems to have the credentials to work the lecture circuit, he looses creditability in that he is someone from a wealthy family and privileged background. This personality issue leads to a problem with the structure of the film. Is this an Al Gore family portrait or a film designed to engage an audience to change their habits and rally to change the world. The film spends too much time talking about Al's idyllic childhood on the family farm, an incident in which his then six-year-old son was run over, and the death of his sister to cigarette related cancer. The film makes tenuous links of these family events with his awakening of the global problem, but if they needed to be included here at all, they are far to long and sentimental.
Other problems; too many graphs and perhaps not enough depth. There were times when I felt like I was watching a 1950s school documentary in primary school. The animations were primary school level too. Putting a real frog in hot water is obviously a cruel thing to do, but for an adult audience the animation was reminiscent of a pre-school TV show. Some of the facts Al presented were slightly questionable as well. Australia is in the grip of a ten-year drought and yet the graphic he presented of the effect of global warming on our rainfall was a net increase. A graphic of emissions suggested that Australia has a low greenhouse gas emission. However, because of our heavy reliance on coal - and brown coal for that matter, we are the second highest polluters per head of population in the world- behind the only other major country not to sign the Kyoto agreement, the United States.
It is clear that the audience for this film is Middle-America. It is safe, it clean, it is wholesome. It has much to offer an audience that is yet to be converted or convinced of the very real problem we are facing as a world. Its presentation and technical qualities as a documentary are first rate. It presents its facts clearly and fairly honestly, without the hysteria of Mike Moore. And perhaps that is An Inconvenient Truth's biggest problem - it is bland. (The people I saw it with felt it was too long - but I was certainly engaged for its hour and 45 minutes.)
I already use Green Energy, the vast majority of my lights are mini-fluro's, I recycle as much as possible, eat organic food when available, have a highly water efficient front loading washing machine, and use public transport if it a viable option for my trip. So is it people like me who are going to see this film, or is it going to engage an audience that needs to be converted? Unfortunately I suspect that it will be the former.
Recomended for those needing a push in the right direction.
3.5 stars (out of 5)
Posted by andrewrenaut at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)