AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
A former U.S. vice-president's clarion
call to save planet Earth
PopcornReel.com Film Review: "An Inconvenient Truth"
By Omar P.L. Moore/June 1, 2006
Davis Guggenheim's documentary on the
environmental crisis of global warming has one star: former U.S. vice president
Al Gore. The ingredients of "An Inconvenient Truth" are elementary: get a
well-known figure to document in dramatic style and disturbing clarity just how
much the world's but particularly America's collective inaction has placed
planet Earth in the situation in which it finds itself.
Looking at the situation a different way, "An Inconvenient Truth" is one of those films that reverses casting roles ingeniously: the environment is the star, which is in danger and needs help. The villain is the collective populace as well as the governments (the United States and Australia are cited in the film as the only two who have not ratified the Kyoto Treaty.) And most importantly the film's heroes (and its ending) have yet to be made, because they are the audience. Mr. Guggenheim's film is thus incomplete, because action is required from all who watch it. The closing credits are a strong example of the kind of imploring and galvanizing of action.
"An Inconvenient Truth" -- whose title comes from a reference Al Gore makes
about an Environmental Protection Agency climate control director who decided
that the truth needed to be told after he was ordered to "doctor" reports by
trivializing the dire shape of the environment as a "theory" -- articulates the
catastrophic dangers of global warming which are growing ever more serious than
before. Mr. Gore's fascinating, compelling and powerful slide
presentations, which he has repeated on more than 1,000 occasions around the
world, are absorbing and highly educational. The presentation is
effortless and the material is clearly and concisely explained by Mr. Gore.
Mr. Guggenheim's cameras break things up and keep them flowing. During the
presentation that comprises the bulk of the documentary, Mr. Gore has a
surprisingly charismatic and humorous air about him, placing him in a new or at
least previously unseen public light. "I'm Al Gore. I used to be the
next president of the United States." After laughs from the presentation
audience, he adds: "I don't find that particularly funny." There are many
other funny moments during the presentation, including the dilemma of what one
wants more: to grab half a dozen gold bullion bars or save the Earth? And
to think that when he was in politics lack of the charisma on display here was
said to be Mr. Gore's biggest stumbling block.
Interspersed with the slide presentation are anecdotal episodes by Mr. Gore, who
speaks in voice-over about his childhood -- which included the fact that "when I
was 14 years old I totaled the family car" -- and that Mr. Gore couldn't
remember a day that went by when he wasn't working in the tobacco fields with
his father near his childhood home. His elder sister Nancy died of lung
cancer at a young age. As Mr. Gore explains, such events in the world
around him shaped his passionate activism to save the environment from early on.
By the looks of things in "An Inconvenient
Truth," Mr. Gore has firmly said goodbye to politics and has channeled the
despair of controversially losing the top political office in America into
remaining steadfast in his efforts to do more to pay serious attention to fixing
the environmental woes of the Earth and educating millions of people worldwide
to do something. In a rare moment he admits that it is "really
frustrating" to convey to people the pressing need to combat global warning and
that politicians are a huge stumbling block. There's a funny and painfully
true line about the fact that an executive salary is based on the executive's
own ignorance and inability to address or try to fix the environmental dangers
that exist. Mr. Guggenheim also shows news footage of the 2000
presidential fiasco that derailed Mr. Gore's place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
and handed the current occupant of that address in Washington, D.C. the key to
the American presidency.
Most effective in Mr. Guggenheim's film are the behind-the-scenes phone calls
that Mr. Gore has with people who provide him crucial information and research,
and when during the slide presentation Mr. Gore tells us devastating facts while
showing us the shocking pictures of mountains in places around the globe whose
polar caps have melted. In one especially disquieting slide, we are told
that "if half of Greenland and half of the Antarctic polar ice region melt,"
numerous big cities around the world will be partially or almost fully submerged
by varying sea levels, including parts of Lower Manhattan, San Francisco,
Beijing, India, Bangladesh. In the last three places, "millions and
millions of people would die," Mr. Gore cites, with millions more taking on the
status of displaced citizens. Hurricane Katrina is also mentioned and Mr.
Gore explains the way waters become warmer and storms more frequent and powerful
when global warming occurs. "When Katrina hit Florida first, it was a
category one." Mr. Gore plays an audio tape of an angry and embattled (now
recently re-elected) New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, who is heard declaring that
the Katrina tragedy is the "biggest crisis in the history of [America]."
Another alarming fact was that a substantial
increase in temperature occurred around the world over the last few years,
particularly in 2003, when Arizona, Illinois, India, parts of the African
continent, France, the United Kingdom and Italy among others, were among the
cities and continents that recorded a spate of sweltering heat that killed
thousands and thousands of people. "An Inconvenient Truth" never insults
the intelligence of its audience, and while it does (and should) chill you with
the facts and not the confusion, it remains hopeful and optimistic that vigilant
and sensible Americans can get up and make a difference at the polls and in
political parties by running for office. Given Mr. Gore's own predicament
in 2000 this is an ironic juxtaposition.
Those who call themselves detractors of Mr. Gore will say that this documentary is a self-righteous, self-serving political commercial for an attempted run for the White House in 2008, and that it smacks of vanity and self-indulgence. On an objective basis however, there's very little to suggest that the detractors are correct. Mr. Gore seems to be sincere in his effort to help change the face of an ever-dangerous ecosystem and the only agenda he appears to have is to get the facts out to people in a very unequivocal way. Why travel around the world to present the slides over a thousand times if you are just playing for time? Mr. Gore may be campaigning here, but this time it is for a cause that on its face is far more urgent and of paramount importance, a cause that affects every living thing. Mr. Guggenheim gained Mr. Gore's trust and was allowed to follow the former vice-president of the U.S. around for months as he jet-set around the globe and went home, and to functions surrounding the environment.
It is far from overstatement to say that "An Inconvenient Truth" is the most important film of our generation. It is a film that must be seen by everyone and acted upon at all costs. This may be the first urgent, interactive call-to-activism via the big screen.
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