Progressive Wednesday

The TGIF Movie Review: An Inconvenient Truth

August 3rd, 2007 by Matt

Editor’s Note: I just watched An Inconvenient Truth for the second time, and I realized, all over again, how important this documentary is to our culture. It’s a gift. A scary one, but one that brims, ultimately, with hope. If you haven’t checked it out, maybe this review will get you high-tailin’ it to Blockbuster.

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To say that global warming is “inconvenient” is the only exaggeration (in this case, understatement) made in this entire film. Early on watching this movie, I got the sense that whether or not we listen to the film’s facts will directly determine if anyone will be around to call it a classic or not. (Check out our Wednesday topic for more related videos.)

An Inconvenient Truth opens with gorgeous video of a river and the forest lining it. This simple image makes what follows all the more heartbreaking, as we see the beautiful innocence of our only home being destroyed. In case you’re unaware, the documentary is essentially a slide-show presentation that Al Gore has given around the world over 1,000 times, explaining the incontrovertible facts of global warming through the use of imagery, raw data, and tragic current events. He effectively destroys the myth that global warming isn’t real and isn’t caused by humanity. He does this with information about glaciers, human population, bird migration, the life-cycles of insects, hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, cyclones, drought, temperature rates, soil evaporation, the extinction of species, vectors for emerging infection diseases, and coral reef bleaching. You can’t help but be convinced, because to still doubt global warming would be as ridiculous as doubting that the planet exists.

What makes all this even more interesting are vivid videos and photographs, Gore’s self-effacing humor, and his light jabs at political rivals. We also learn about Gore’s life, both personal and professional, and his upbringing, all of which adds a texture of honesty to the picture.

One of my writing professors in graduate school once told us that “all nature writing is elegy.” Thankfully, An Inconvenient Truth is no fatalistic final words. Instead, it removes the myth that the problem is too big for us to make a change. Doubters, Gore says, tend to go from denial to despair. But we needn’t. The film asks viewers to go to ClimateCrisis.net to learn ways to lessen their impact on our already thin and vulnerable atmosphere. To paraphrase a pretty damned famous politico — we have a choice: we are the enemy; we are either for us or we are against us.

I thought about what I’m about to write closely and carefully and frequently since seeing this film for the first time. I’m done thinking about it because I believe my final sentence to be true as the sky is blue. This is the most important film ever made.