Attack of the Lizard Men

It’s been a rough week  for documentary films in my life. It was environmental film week, which excited me and had me watching the docs early. Environmentalism is one of my favorite subjects. Its role was central and should have made a great show. However, I was sorely disappointed.

                Both films featured strong narrators who drove the plots of the films. While this stylistic choice can work well in certain cases, both narrators in these particular films projected inflated egos that distracted the viewer from the important environmental issues presented. Each narrator thought themselves very important to their causes. And to some degree, they thought they were more important than their causes.

                As a proponent of environmental advocacy, I was seething in my chair as these pretentious men shoved their personal agendas down my throat. I couldn’t even finish An Inconvenient Truth as Al Gore’s gentle-yet-oh-so-i-know-everything voice pummeled through my tolerance levels, leaving my internal thoughts screaming for respite. I felt irksome pains, carrying the force of a juggernaut, roll over me every time he spoke of his personal life story. Maybe I'm just a disgruntled anarchist, but his demeanor completely pissed me off. Watch for yourself. 

 "That brings up the basic science of global warming. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that because, uh, you know it well," he says. Oh the pains, they're rolling over me again. They make me relate to Louis CK when he asked Donald Rumsfeld, “Are you a lizard?”

Al, dude, you are a failed presidential candidate attempting to reclaim your self-pride by making your face the face of the global warming issue, a topic over which you have zero authority. This film was supposed to be about one of the most threatening issues our Earth faces currently and you’re telling me about your dad’s life as a cattle rancher. You are not cool. You are not smooth. You exploited the cause of environmental justice to further yourself in the eyes of society. Congratulations, Al. You even succeeded, winning the Nobel Prize for your work.

Werner Boote, in Plastic Planet, was less egotistical in his narration, but not much better. He probably thought his ability to speak in countless languages heightened his persona, but he missed the mark on the personality bit substantially. To give Boote some credit, he did seem more interested in his cause than Gore.

I’m left shaking my head in memory of these two men on my computer screen. I am angry. I feel like they profited from the issues that the earth is currently suffering just so they could profit, not so they could change the blight of the environment. The latter cause is the true purpose of environmental films – to empower the people and make the world healthier. I was left wanting far more from these two men, who cared more about their roles than the issues they preached.