The 11th Hour

Seldom have I had as disagreeable a cinematographic experience as when I went to watch 'An Inconvenient Truth', in fact the only time worse was when my friend and I opted to watch 'Superstar' instead of the 'Sixth Sense' (he didn't feel like watching anything remotely frightening or dark - we were 12). My then girlfriend fell asleep on my shoulder, and the only reason I did not, in turn, cede to sleep was because of my determination to find an element of value in this "documentary" which would lend some credence to the hype. In addition, I had been fostering a steadily growing interest in all things ecological for some time, an interest which continues to grow today. Needless to say, I was not impressed by Al Gore's little PowerPoint presentation sprinkled with personal anecdotes and a dose of scare tactics. I would have much preferred he had spammed the internet with his .pps file and shut-up instead of regaling us with stories about his nanny that died of lung cancer, after which his father stopped growing tobacco (how touching [barf!]), in a "documentary" that felt more like an attempt at political-rehabilitation. Complete and utter WASTE OF TIME! I do, however, have to admit that the film did play an important role in raising awareness across the globe so... props to you Mr. Gore!

The 11th Hour unlike its predecessor does not restrict itself to scare-tactics, nor does it even dwell on these elements too long, but rather chooses to emphasize that this is a time of change and, therefore, a time of opportunities. The documentary has a very straightforward structure with Leonardo DiCaprio acting as a transition between the various parts of the film:

1. Intro
2. How did we get here?
   
3. Where are we today and where are we headed?
4. Why have we not yet made a change?
   
5. Human crisis
6. Human solution, human opportunity
   

So, what did I like about it? It was well paced, gave you an overview of the situation and its context without losing itself in detail, it had a broad panel of contributors each with their own perspectives and illustrations, it was cathartic and most importantly it was positive. I got up after watching the film feeling good and wanting to take action.

Alot of things struck home with me and I am sure to watch it again with paper and pen in hand to take note of the more interesting tidbits. I won't bother listing them here, you can, and should, watch the film yourself, but I will admit one thing: to illustrate man's ignorance and detachment from nature one of the contributors mentioned that by the time we are of age to attend college we have seen thousads of hours of commercials and can identify hundreds of corporate logos but that most of us are incapable of identifying ten types of trees. I thought about it and although I know the names of a few trees I don't think I could identify half of them.

It did not hurt to have my opinion on the resiliency of nature confirmed more than a few times either :)

Most imporant thing to remember? We are part of nature and nature is seamless. We are also at the top of the food chain and, therefore, the most vulnerable.

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The above poster is not the actual film poster but rather a promotional poster made by the artist Shepard Fairey. OBEY! :) I love this guy's prints.

--==I Links I==--

IMDB - 11th Hour: www.imdb.com/title/tt0492931/
Wiki - 11th Hour: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_11th_Hour_(film)
11th Hour Action: http://11thhouraction.com/

--==I Trailer I==--