This film follows the year-long life experiment of Colin Beavan, the self-proclaimed No Impact Man, as he tries to avoid any carbon-based energy sources for an entire year. To do this he and his wife and baby daughter have to give up carbon-based things like electric lights, refrigerators, cars, elevators, televisions and supermarkets with their mass-produced food. (Special exceptions are made for a laptop, so Beavan can blog about his experience, and trains, so the family can travel to Upstate New York to visit organic farms. What would a self-imposed rule be without a few exceptions?)
We see chronologically how Beaven and his wife Michelle Conlin make behavioral changes to show they can live a no-impact life. Some of the sacrifices are easy (no TV, no junk food) and some are harder (no refrigerator), but the couple deals with the situation in a very grown-up way. They fight on camera, but make up on camera as well. At times they both seem unfair to the other and unfairly attacked by the other. It's as much an interesting relationship expose as it is an environmental one.
This is not a polemic - it merely shows one family's journey. At no point does Beaven suggest that everybody should do what his family is doing. This is simply a document of an experiment. (Not giving anything away, but there is a suggestion at the end that the family will keep some behaviors and give up others returning partly to life as it was before).
The film is also very unapologetic. Both Beaven and Conlin are aware that they seem like twee urban elitist eco-wonks and the reaction they get as they embark on their project is nothing if not negative, sarcastic and cynical. Beaven and family, who got a good amount of New York-based media attention during the project as a result of his blog, were featured in a New York Times article and many other eco-blogs (the fact that they were giving up toilet paper was the most talked-about element of the project). They talk openly about the criticism against them - and sometimes talk to those criticizing them. There is something very post-modern about the subjects of the documentary talking about how they are being portrayed in the documentary about themselves.
It is interesting to make a documentary about a blogger. There is really no need for it as it is simply media about media. All you need to do is read Beaven's blog and you will might understand much of what you get from the film. Still, there is a kindness and humanity to the movie that might not come across on the computer. Beaven is a good husband and father; Michelle is a good mother and wife. They struggle as individuals with their own pitfalls and struggle together as a unit.
It is a shame that film is called No Impact Man, a title that comes from the blog, because the film is really about a no impact family. This not only shows the non-carbon impact of the people, but also shows the no impactness of the relationship between the members as well. It shows us how in the middle of busy urban lives, there should be time to stop and smell the relative roses. Go to a park or a museum in the city; enjoy spending time with your family; share a dinner with friends and neighbors; enjoy life and, if possible, don't hurt Mother Earth. How nice.
Stars: 2.5 of 4
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