The last post got me thinking about this documentary I saw recently.
I just moved back to NYC from Seagrove and I am also grappling with what Green is, especially from a real estate development/urban planning perspective. I know about LEED certification and urban planning techniques in use in the U.S., but I am more interested in what needs to be done on a global level to produce some kind of sustainability.
So, I was initially drawn to watch the documentary in the theater because of the hypnotic imagery in the trailer and because i knew it would touch on urban development. I also got the sense that a new visual language was being explored. The landscape shot, generally a summary of the natural environment, became a framing of an alternate reality, sometimes frightening. It was easy to watch this film and be outraged or disappointed in the job we have done as land stewards. But, as time passed I was fascinated by psychology of the locations I was seeing. They seemed like a projection of internal space, a very human attempt to materialize a nightmare, like madness, desolation, or loss. But the spaces are enormous, like the collective psyche of a whole population suffering from the same disturbance. It took many years to create these landscapes and I don’t know if I believe that human consciousness is going to develop so significantly in the next few years that we will stop making more of them.
Most of the doc is set in China. A country just hitting its stride in a massive industrial revolution. The only thing to compare it to would be the U.S. industrial revolution BUT theirs is fuled by oil and much more sophisticaed technology. I don’t want to blunt the impact of what you will see by giving you a plot summary, so suffice to say i was left with the feeling that we can recycle our asses off for the next 50 years but China is going to be a nuclear bomb going off in slow motion. The last post pointed out how much less consumption per person China has, but this film really sets out the staggering scale of the environmental impact of Chinese manufacturing.
As far as documentaries go it is well crafted. The loose structure follows Edward Burtynsky, acclaimed international photographer as he captures the effects of China’s industrial revolution. This is not “An inconvenient Truth.” It is probably the least aggressive and preachy doc I have seen in a while. If you want to see global environmental change and be left to make up your own mind, check it out. You also may want to think about how long the United States is going to be THE super power. China is just ramping up and we have been sitting on our couches for a while now.
