February 22, 2008...2:31 am
What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire
This movie deserves a long, thoughtful, elegantly composed review. Oh well. What I can deliver is a brief cheer: “Watch this movie!”
What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire is not Just Another Eco-tastrophe Movie. It’s a personal, poetic, and challenging cultural analysis of the mess Western and rich capitalist societies are in. The imagery and soundtrack deliberately seeks to move the viewer at the level of emotions, while at the same time the intellectual content encourages reflexivity and questions. Go with it, it’s a trip. It offers the challenge of unresolved questions and personal responsibility, rather than easy answers. There’s no ‘happy chapter’ at the end, but it offers hope, of a mythic, initiatory kind, for those willing to journey into the unknown.
The movie’s subsection headings (for the curious):
- The Basics of Peak Oil
- The Basics of Climate Change
- Impact on Living Things
- Abrupt Climate Change
- Positive Feedback Loops
- Tipping Points
- Overwhelm
- The Basics of Mass Extinction
- Vacuuming the Oceans
- Draining the Water
- The Basics of Population Growth
- Population Dynamics
- The Growth Economy
- Exponential Growth
- Expansion and Colonisation
- Wealth and Inequality
- Poisoning the Planet
- Economic Collapse
- Totalitarian and Catastrophic Agriculture
- Resource Wars
- Catastrophe or Conscious Intention
- Inevitability
- Choice
- How Did We Get Here?
- What Keeps Us Trapped Here?
- Ancient Origins
- The Rise of Empire
- Science and Technology
- The Myth of Technofix
- The Fantasy of “No Limits”
- Power and Control
- Cultural Binders
- Systems and Structures
- The Mainstream Media
- The Government
- The Educational System
- Abuse and Addiction
- Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Denial
- Helplessness and Resignation
- Padding Our Cells
- Walkabout
1 Comment
May 18, 2008 at 11:31 am
[...] Community screenings are indeed being organized around the world as this unique two hour documentary hits hard and hits deep right where it counts; at the heartstrings of humanity. “What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire is not Just Another Eco-tastrophe Movie. It’s a personal, poetic, and challenging cultural analysis of the mess Western and rich capitalist societies are in.” source [...]