Going, Going … It’s impossible to properly describe The film also captures the largest glacial the sight of Alaska’s Columbia glacier calving event ever caught on tape – a Lower Chasing Ice, directed by Jeff Orlowski, retreating four kilometers in three years. Manhattan-sized hunk of ice collapsing in United States: Exposure LLC, 2012, In this sense, the film completely real- a frozen sea. 75 minutes. izes Balog’s gut-wrenching, spellbinding In one of many candid scenes, Balog Reviewed by Eric Rumble vision: to communicate our situation visu- talks about the “tension between the huge his quietly jarring documentary about ally, like no words or hockey stick graph enduring power of these glaciers, and their TNational Geographic photographer ever could. Director Orlowski adds other fragility.” His hope is that Chasing Ice’s James Balog’s work explores the challenge practical and understated material, prob- imagery will move the rest of us enough of bringing climate change into focus. In ing the cryoconite holes that melt giant ice to embrace a solution. search of a seductive, meaningful display sheets, rappelling into spectacular moulins Eric Rumble is editor of Alternatives. and panning vast landscapes with Balog’s The top photo is by James Balog, © 2009 James Balog/ of global warming’s impact, Balog realized Extreme Ice Survey; the photo of Balog is by Tad Pfeffer “the story is in the ice, somehow,” and created crew in view to convey the daunting scale. © 2007 Extreme Ice Survey. the Extreme Ice Survey (extremeicesurvey.org) in 2005. He launched the project with a small team, who built two dozen automated cam- Chasing Ice will be released in era rigs to endure Arctic punishment, and selected theatres later this fall. If you then trekked to remote shoot locations in can’t wait, it will also be screened at Greenland, Iceland, Alaska and Montana the closing night gala at Toronto’s 13th to set them up. Their aim, to collect time- annual Planet in Focus environmental lapsed image sequences of glaciers receding film festival on October 14, during over six-month periods, was certainly no which James Balog will be honoured walk in the park. But once they’d overcome as the event’s “International Eco Hero” the exploding batteries, falling rocks, cir- for 2012. Past recipients include David cuit failures and snow burials that plagued Suzuki, Margaret Atwood, Edward their first season, the results were stagger- Burtynsky and Alanis Obomsawin. ing. Sharing them has since become the chasingice.com / jamesbalog.com / next phase of Balog’s mission. planetinfocus.org
44 AlternativesJournal.ca 38:5 / 2012 people involved. However, St.-Pierre aptly explains the interconnection between fair trade and environmental sustainability. For instance, he illustrates how sugar farmers at the CoopeAgri plantation in Costa Rica have abandoned traditional field-burning methods, finding financial rewards by protecting 15,000 hectares of virgin forest. One challenge of this book is its frequent use of the acronyms of the various labelling and certification organizations, co-operatives and unions that work under the fair trade umbrella. I was often flipping back a few pages to remind myself what each one meant. Nonetheless, St.-Pierre PHOTOS BY SARAH J. CHRISTMAN J. SARAH BY PHOTOS and his collaborators do an excellent job of Below: Cell phone parts before being cooked. elucidating fair trade’s complicated layers. St.-Pierre clearly advocates for FLO MATTER & MEANING certification, but doesn’t gloss over the controversial issues that continue to plague As Above, So Below the movement. He plunks the reader Sarah J. Christman (director), United States: Independent, 2012, 50 minutes. down in certified tea estates in India where salaried workers still refer to the owner as Reviewed by ERIC RUMBLE a materials recycling multinational explains “king.” He shows us the temporary straw how the company recovers obsolete roof of a schoolroom in a Malian village, lthough it opens by framing sunlight products rather than mining. Christman where cotton farmers await overdue Aon a forest floor, it’s hardly obvious also profiles the Freshkills Park project in premium payments. On a page dedicated that Sarah J. Christman’s newest (and New York’s Staten Island borough, formerly to certification labels, St-Pierre clarifies that lengthiest) documentary explores the site of the world’s largest landfill. fair trade has “no national and international how matter is reshaped by energy. “Garbage is one very chronic and unsettling legal framework,” warning the consumer: Contemplative scenery reveals as much as reminder of the inherently ephemeral “This means that anyone can boast of the dialogue, while unidentified speakers nature of everything,” explains Robin Nagle, being ‘fair.’” and a deliberate absence of talking heads anthropologist in residence with the NYC Still, the overwhelming message of Fair keep the narrative elusive. Yet the 34-year- department of sanitation. Trade is one of hope. St.-Pierre describes old American filmmaker’s faith in nuance, The point is that industrial-scale how the fair trade market now produces respect for mystery and openness to manufacturing and technology have $5-billion in retail sales, arguing that “the interpretation is what makes As Above, So created boundless material goods to results are undeniable.” He also points out Below such a rare, offbeat treat. reinvent, whether or not we do so with that fair trade is part of a much wider market The film melds three seemingly disparate care, efficiency or intention. (These three trend that aspires to consider social justice storylines, each hinting at how alchemy examples all do.) Our relationships with and environmental responsibility. Even has evolved with the rise of disposable objects, which range from bizarrely intimate the most vociferous critics would surely culture. The primary focus is Christman’s to blatantly fleeting, rarely take into account acknowledge this truth. mother as she decides to have some of what happens when we no longer possess The image that the words “fair trade” her deceased husband’s remains turned them. And while the amount of physical conjures in my mind is no longer a vague into a diamond, and much of the early and psychic energy we pour into our silhouetted logo. Now I picture one of St.- narration is a recorded phone call of that possessions is staggering, what matters Pierre’s more poignant images: a laughing, process being explained by the company’s more is our blind, large-scale embrace of bright-eyed Indian girl in a red and pink representatives. The camera lingers on one of alchemy’s core ideas – that time can dress. But instead of being subjected to tension in her mother’s knuckles, or the be bent to defy nature’s schedule in favour child labour on the tea plantation where careful removal of ashes from an urn – of ours. her parents work, she’s flying through the otherwise mundane details that slyly make breeze on a wooden swing, carefree. the story more familiar and immersive. Watch the trailer of As Above, So Below (and The other two threads broaden the film’s other fabulous environmental docs) at scope. Discarded cell phones are collected, alternativesjournal.ca/videos. For screening deconstructed and cooked into precious details and to learn more about Christman’s and base metals as the sales manager from work, head to sarahchristman.com.
Launch your organic foods lifestyle this winter. Guelph University Centre, Jan. 31-Feb. 3, 2013 guelphorganicconf.ca Above: The memorial diamond made from the ashes of Christman’s deceased stepfather.
58 alternativesjournal.ca 39:1 2013 TAPPING INTO THE UNDERGROUND Lost Rivers Caroline Bâcle (director), Canada: Catbird Films, 2012, 72 minutes.
Reviewed by ERIC RUMBLE underground footage and flash-lit a discussion of the issues that have photography guided by “drainers,” a global complicated daylighting projects and s the creator of Lost Rivers describes subculture of stealthy explorers that are sewer infrastructure debates in Montreal, Ait, we’ve practiced a bad habit in our “fascinated by the entrails of cities.” Toronto, London, Seoul and Yonkers, New built environment. “We built our cities on As one of the drainers puts it, everything York. In particular, the story of Italy’s Brescia the shores of rivers,” narrates the Montreal- above ground has been documented. Underground – a band of manhole popping based writer, researcher and director. “Over This film o!ers the flipside. It also tries outlaws who’ve been embraced as a legit time, we pushed rivers away – out of sight to point out the elephant under our feet. historical society that now runs tours of and out of reach.” Paved surfaces – which can’t absorb water the ancient Roman rivers under their city’s To isolate the ills of this predicament and – are the prevailing glitch in our system. streets – is a great testament to the idea that some applied solutions for dealing with it, And because an unprecedented number a mutual appreciation for our buried past can Caroline Bâcle’s film plunges into the past, of people living in cities are putting an help break down the status quo. present and future of waterways beneath unnatural strain on natural watersheds Eric Rumble is editor of A\J. cities around the world. One of this sharp, and wastewater management, sustainable thoughtful documentary’s many strengths density remains a major conundrum Watch the trailer for Lost Rivers (which won is its varied cast of characters, all deeply for ever-increasing urbanization. Bâcle the 2009 Planet in Focus film festival’s Green immersed in di!erent river reclamation combines this indictment of concrete with Pitch and premiered at the 2012 opening e!orts, from disassembling infrastructure evidence that nature responds quickly gala) at alternativesjournal.ca/videos. It will to excavating antiquities to urban infiltration and dramatically to restoration, and also screen on opening night at this month’s (literally just for the hell of it). Bâcle also argues that the Earth’s power generates Environmental Film Festival in Washington, weaves in archival material (explaining power in people. DC, and at Prague’s One World Film Festival in how London’s cholera epidemic in the Most practically, Lost Rivers engages March and April. catbirdproductions.ca late-1800s led to 3,200 km of bricked-in small business owners, urban planners, dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org sewers, for example) and some outstanding historians and passionate citizens in oneworld.cz/2013.
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