![]() ![]() He also began forging connections with experts in fields such as climate change adaptation, fossil fuel depletion and “collapsology,” three of whom went on to have starring roles in the film. ![]() In 2012, he started writing this documentary. ![]() He resolved to use his filmmaking skills to raise awareness about our ongoing civilizational decline and to promote individual and collective resilience in the face of it. Since that scenario saw both the global economy and the human population crashing precipitously by the mid-21st century, that’s what Cappellin came to believe we were in for over the next few decades. So he revisited Limits and noted that its disastrous business-as-usual scenario lined up remarkably well with the real-world course of events over the past several decades. However, something about the sight of all those shipping containers made that report’s message click with him in a way that it never had before. He had long ago read the Club of Rome’s groundbreaking 1972 report The Limits to Growth, with its scenarios of global catastrophe if industrial society failed to heed the constraints imposed on it by the limited resources of our finite world. The film brilliantly reenacts Cappellin’s ordeal his emotions are perfectly conveyed in a scene that intercuts stumbling point-of-view walking shots inside the ship’s sterile metal corridors with increasingly frantic footage of industrial-era atrocities like atom bombs detonating, icebergs calving and animal carcasses dangling from factory conveyor belts.Ĭappellin’s disorientation soon gave way to realization. He was traveling across the ocean on a container ship (having given up flying) when he found himself overcome by a mixture of nausea and morbid fascination at the sight of thousands of containers filled with consumer goods. Ironically, it was not this spiritual journey itself, but rather the physical one that bore him to it, that revitalized Cappellin. Demoralized, Cappellin resorted to what he calls “the mandatory spiritual journey eastward.” But the tone takes a depressing turn when Cappellin reveals that these efforts only brought renewed despair, for none of them succeeded in slowing down our civilization’s headlong rush toward disaster. He goes on to describe his subsequent 10-year globetrotting campaign to “save the world,” an adventure that saw him plant trees in the equatorial rainforest, join the zero-waste movement and interview prominent climate scientists for political films. Cappellin then recounts how, as an Earth sciences undergraduate, he first became aware of the enormity of the anthropogenic threats facing Earth’s biosphere. It opens with a serene montage of nature footage and a voiceover in which Cappellin reminisces about his early childhood spent in awe of the natural world. Part personal memoir and part big-picture look at today’s environmentally threatened world, it asks two of the most vital yet fraught questions of our time: What does it mean to truly understand the reality of humankind’s ecological predicament, and what should you do with that understanding once you possess it? The film is captivating in the way it goes about addressing these questions, which involves beautiful cinematography, wonderfully written narration and powerful visual storytelling. Once You Know is his first feature-length documentary, and it’s a stunning debut. Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutesĮmmanuel Cappellin is a fine filmmaker, an eager student of ecology and a fervent environmental activist. Written and directed by Emmanuel Cappellin in collaboration with Anne-Marie Sangla cinematographed by Emmanuel Cappellin edited by Anne-Marie Sangla music by Maxime Steiner produced by Clarisse Barreau and Emmanuel Cappellin. A Pulp Films production in association with Maelstrom Studios and Eko Sound. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |