Feature Films

Avatar (2009)

Dean Spanley is directed by the New Zealand film-maker Toa Fraser. It’s set in Edwardian England immediately after the Boer War and is about the relationship between an elderly, self-centred widower Horatio Fisk and his son, the dedicated Henslowe, who seeks to console him but can’t win his love. The question of dogs being reincarnated as humans arises and they meet Dean Spanley, a dignified cleric who eventually – under the influence of alcohol –  reveals himself to be the reincarnation of a Victorian spaniel called Wag. It is a heart-warming well made film.

Grow Your Own (2007) is a  British film directed by Richard Laxton. The film centres around a group of gardeners at a Merseyside allotment, who react angrily when a group of refugees are given plots at the site, but after they get to know them better, soon change their minds. The film was previously known under the title The Allotment.^[2] (review from Wikipedia)

Grizzly Man (2005) is a documentary by Werner Herzog about Timothy Treadwell, an endearing man who spent years living alongside grizzly bears in Alaska.  Treadwell had taken years of his own film footage about his relationships with bears before he and his girlfriend were eaten by a bear in 2003. Herzog also includes interviews with people who knew, or were involved with Treadwell.  It is a very interesting account of a man who had a very powerful relationship with the wild but at the same time was very confused about it.

Fly Away Home (1996)  is about the daughter of a widower who, with her father, leads a flock of Canada Geese from Canada to a wildlife refuge in the USA.The film was loosely based on the real-life experiences of  Bill Lishman, a Canadian inventor, artist, and ultralight aircraft hobbyist. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lishman openly wondered if geese and similar birds could be taught new migration patterns by following ultralight aircraft onto which they had been imprinted. In 1993, after several years of logistical and bureaucratic setbacks, Lishman successfully led a flock of Canada Geese on a winter migration from Canada to Northern Virginia U.S.A. Thirteen of the 16 birds that participated in the migration returned the following year entirely on their own. (Review from Wkipedia)

Into the Wild (2007) recounts the true story of  Christopher McCandless  as told by his sympathetic sister, Carine McCandless. In rejection of a materialist, conventional life, and of his parents Walt McCandless and Billie McCandless, whom McCandless perceives as having betrayed him, McCandless destroys all of his credit cards  and identification documents, donates $24,000 (nearly his entire savings) to Oxfam, and sets out on a drive in his well-used but reliable Datsun toward his ultimate goal: Alaska and, alone, to test himself and experience the wilds of nature. He does not tell his family what he is doing or where he is going and does not communicate with them thereafter, leaving them to become increasingly anxious and eventually desperate. The film is an interesting take on one human’s relationship to wild places; there is no idealisation here. (review from Wikipedia)

The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008)  has stood the test of time and its remake is far more than that, and well worth seeing. Both touch on timeless mythic themes: destruction and redemption, death and resurrection, mortality and immortality, individual liberty and group unity, national sovereignty and global community, and, of course, scientists playing God and technology run amok. Myths, whether in written or visual form, serve a vital role of asking unanswerable questions and providing unquestionable answers. Most of us, most of the time, have a low tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty. We want to reduce the cognitive dissonance of not knowing by filling the gaps with answers. Traditionally, religious myths have served that role, but today—in the age of science—science fiction is our mythology.

The Road: John Hillcoat’s superb adaptation of the prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy leads its audience on a road to nowhere. The route takes us through blighted forests and past derelict homes, all the way to a grey and barren ocean that breaks against the shore. …….At such moments The Road paints a brutal portrait of a dying planet stalked by starving, desperate men. And yet there is a tenderness here too, and it shows its hand in the subtle, moving interplay between the two main characters. Mortensen is perfectly cast as the gaunt, wasted hero, while Smit-McPhee copes well with a demanding role as his soulful offspring, forever willing to share his meagre meal. Although they walk together, we have the sense that these two are ultimately headed in opposite directions. Born into the old world, Mortensen’s father starts out strong and then begins to fade. Born into the new, his son grows in stature and picks up the baton. He presses on down the road, hungry, filthy and wonderfully sane; a glimmer of hope for the human race. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/03/the-road-adaptation-cormac-mccarthy

The Story of the Weeping Camel (2004) is a lovingly observed and fascinating journal of day-to-day survival in the Mongolian Gobi desert. For a family of herders who happily eke out their living in this remote dustbowl, crisis comes in the shape of a newborn camel rejected by its mother after an agonising birth. They undertake to rear the calf by hand, but the longer he’s denied his mother’s milk, the more likely it is the little camel will die.  After failed efforts to reconcile mother and baby, the family dispatches young Dude and his little brother Ugna to ride across the plains and fetch help. But rather than a veterinarian, it is a violinist who’s called upon to conduct an ancient ritual thought to inspire a maternal instinct. Review from  www.bbc.co.uk/films/

The Tree (2010) A touching story about the grief of a family after suddenly losing Peter, the father. Dawn, his wife, is left to look after four children. Simone, the youngest daughter, finds comfort in the large fig tree outside the house. She can hear and sense the spirit of her father in the tree, and invites her mother to join her. Fate intervenes when the tree starts to damage the house and a cyclone arrives.

Whale Rider (2002)  is set in New Zealand, where the legend has it that the native people came there following their leader, a boy who heroically rode on the back of a whale.  From that day forward, tradition has been to give leadership to direct descendants of that leader of old, but tragedy occurs when opposite-sexed twins are born, the girl living, the boy dying, and the mother also not making it through the delivery.  The chain is broken, as tradition has it that only first-born male descendants may be the leader.  The girl, Pai, grows into an adventurous and talented person of her own, but her grandfather Koro (Paratene, Man-Thing) has no need for spirited girls to try to be leader.  Koro starts a school to teach the olden traditions, and hope he can find a boy among the village to rise to the occasion and show leadership for the people who now have none.  All signs point to Pai, but traditions are meant to be upheld. It is a well-made film, a coming-of-age tale of sorts, not only for one young girl, but also for a people struggling to maintain an identity and cohesion.  It’s recommended to anyone who doesn’t mind a slow drama with mythical components, which is as much about the people and their beliefs as it is about the central storyline.  Review from http://www.qwipster.net/whalerider.htm

Also see http://www.teachgreenpsych.com/ecopsychology.php#popfilms

Documentaries

Ancient Futures (1992) Ladakh is one of the latest victims of the onward march of globalization. Ladakh is a formerly isolated Himalayan territory of two districts, one primarily Buddhist, the other mostly Muslim. This book focuses on the Buddhist community and how their lives have been blighted by this attempt at westernization. We might view this attempt more kindly if we believed it was genuinely directed at improving the welfare of local residents, but capitalist philosophy being what it is, it is almost certain that the prime concern was exploitation to increase profits.

Farm for the Future: Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key. It was shown on BBC in 2008/9

In Transition (2009) is the first detailed film about the Transition movement filmed by those that know it best, those who are making it happen on the ground. The Transition movement is about communities around the world responding to peak oil and climate change with creativity, imagination and humour, and setting about rebuilding their local economies and communities.

Jill Bolte: My Stroke of Insight: An amazing 20min TED lecture where brain scientist Jill Bolte gives a moving account of her experience of a stroke which thrust her back and forth between right and left brains.

Journey of the Universe An Epic Story of Cosmic, Earth, and Human Transformation. (2012) Written by Brian Swimme & Mary Evelyn Tucker

Our Generation (2011) Hidden from the eyes of the world, Australia’s First Peoples are fighting for freedom. Our Generation is their call to the nation, a fresh and unflinching look at unresolved issues, driven by the Yolngu of Northeast Arnhem Land.

Paul Hawken at Bioneers (2006) A very moving 6 min commencement address.

The Age of Stupid (2009)  is the new cinema documentary from the Director of ‘McLibel’ and the Producer of the Oscar-winning ‘One Day in September’. This enormously ambitious drama-documentary-animation hybrid stars Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living in the devastated world of 2055, watching ‘archive’ footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change while we had the chance?

The Corporation  is a 2003 Canadian documentary film. The documentary is critical of the modern-day corporation, considering its legal status as a class of person and evaluating its behaviour towards society and the world at large as a psychiatrist might evaluate an ordinary person. This is explored through specific examples.

The Economics of Happiness 2011  describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, government and big business continue to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, all around the world people are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance—and, far from the old institutions of power, they’re starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm – an economics of localization. Read more on www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org

The Natural World: The Wilds of Essex A touching documentary exploring the question, what is wild nature?  Narrated by Robert McFarlane, author of Wild Places.He finds a wonderful weaving together of wild nature with human impact.

The Power of Community: How Cuba survived Peak Oil  (2006) When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba’s economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens.