Anne-Sophie Marie sees how the former US Vice President’s latest call-to-arms, An Inconvenient Sequel, stacks up against recent environmentalist documentaries.
Though I’m usually not the biggest documentary watcher, I went to see Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power after a bit of a documentary binge: Adam Curtis’ eerie Bitter Lake, Ava DuVernay’s powerful 13th, Kip Andersen’s Cowspiracy and… Al Gore’s own 2006 An Inconvenient Truth.
As some of you may know already, a special screening was available in select cinemas a week before its UK release (August 18th), all preceded by a half hour Q&A with Al Gore in live streaming (or live for those attending the Picturehouse Central screening). Realising the last time I’d seen a pre-screening Q&A happened to be Leonardo DiCaprio’s introduction of Before The Flood just before the last US presidential elections, I then couldn’t view Al Gore’s second documentary on climate change without comparing it to DiCaprio’s 2016 film on the same subject.
In both films, we’re invited to follow a narrator-protagonist on their journey to raise awareness about climate change while assessing the current situation. And speaking of narrator-protagonists, both men have been criticized with being self-promoting, and occasionally on not doing what they preach (e.g. Gore’s housing footprint and DiCaprio’s lifestyle).
Sure, in both cases, the films revolve around them, sometimes maybe a little too much. But isn’t it what happens in narratives? And isn’t it what often gets us to invest in a story?
Besides, both men’s backgrounds make them interesting narrators to follow. While Leo plays a kind of (utterly privileged) everyman with whom we can learn about climate change (he presents himself as a city boy with very little knowledge and little hope on the issue at hand) as he meets world leaders and scientists, Al Gore is a more seasoned environmental activist (Gore first became involved when DiCaprio was only 2 years old), a recovering politician (Bill Clinton’s Vice President and winner of the popular vote against George W Bush, in case some have forgotten), and to contrast with DiCaprio’s artistic Californian background (we’re reminded in the film that his father collaborated with the likes of Andy Warhol and Lou Reed), a rural Tennessee native who partly grew up on his father’s farm and chose a pair of black cowboy boots to tour his new film.
As for their personal lives, the only thing we found out during the Q&A is that though he doesn’t preach it, Al Gore (like Bill Clinton) became a vegan sometime between An Inconvenient Truth and its sequel.
Another commonality of the two films is the eye-opening quality they share, each showing the audience first hand that the natural disasters we face more and more frequently around the world have reached properly biblical epic doomsday levels.
While DiCaprio’s film begins with a beautiful painting of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights and presents parallels between purgatory and the current state of the earth (population increase included), Gore’s sequel reminds us all too well that contemporary news is “like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation” as we witness fish swimming through the streets of Florida, Hurricane Sandy flooding the main floor of the 9/11 memorial museum in 2012 (predicted in by Gore in An Inconvenient Truth and ignored by climate deniers), melting ice sheets in Greenland, the devastating 2013 Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (6000+ deaths), shoes melting on a pavement from the heat, people in Karachi digging mass graves before the next heat wave….
We also go from classic catastrophe blockbuster to political thriller when both heroes remind us of the powerful lobbies behind American politics and media, and that “big money hacked American Democracy before Putin did”. And thus the villains for both films are revealed.
In spite of their alarming analysis, both films also show hope, especially through the switch to renewable energies, and the economics behind it. One of the best moments in An Inconvenient Sequel takes place in Georgetown, Texas, as Al Gore visits Dale Ross, its Republican mayor who has switched to renewable energies, simply because it’s more cost effective.
This is a great reminder that climate change shouldn’t be a political party issue but one of self-preservation and common sense, and it ties in with the biggest event in Gore’s new film: The Paris Agreement, which took place on the same week as the Bataclan attacks in November 2015. There we see 195 countries (North Korea included) eventually signing the treaty in spite of their many political differences. Throughout the film, Gore struggles to convince India to switch to renewable energies, and doubles his efforts during his time in Paris. Will he succeed? You’ll have to watch An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power to find out…
Back to hopeful moments the film offers: mirroring Georgetown, TX, one of the most hopeful moments in Sequel is Chile’s investment in Solar Energy (more here).
Although the two films share quite a bit of common ground, it’s worth watching both, as they almost complete each other, and because sometimes we need to hear things from slightly different angles. They also differ in style, DiCaprio’s documentary almost going for a Hollywood film/interview series hybrid, while Gore’s sequel is a lot closer to a filmed lecture on climate change. In a strange way, Gore’s cautiously optimistic new documentary reminded me of Episode VII: The Force Awakens: If you have seen an Inconvenient Truth, the structure and some of the content may feel a little too familiar, though it will still be worth a watch because of the film’s horrifying and hopeful updates.
A great addition would have been a focus story on one of the many people Gore trains regularly, and a firsthand narrative on how one of us can make a change through our daily choices and through talking to the people we elect. Maybe an idea for a spin off with a happier ending than Rogue One?
PS: my personal favorite local green success story takes place in Kentucky and does not feature in Gore or DiCaprio’s films (you can view it here.)
An Inconvenient Sequel is out now in cinemas.
