![]() ![]() ![]() There is nothing beautiful in the film's discussion of the spread of certain diseases, like Zika, towards parts of the world in which they have never before existed. Some of the images of ice and water offered up by the documentary would be beautiful if they weren't going to lead to something so cataclysmically bad for our world. Seeing Al Gore in waterproof boots on the streets of a flooded Miami, or seeing video of dramatic rescues in the middle of climate catastrophes is incredible. Never is An Inconvenient Sequel stronger than when it shows the destruction caused by climate change. No one working on the film can do anything to change the direction in which our nation has gone since production began, but An Inconvenient Sequel does not feel as though it addresses those changes to an adequate degree.Īnd yet, there is much in the positive column as well. This last is acknowledged by the film, as is the need to keep fighting, but that is still a deflating message after the buildup. Not only does that seem too easy and as though it ought to be a full documentary by itself, but the United States under President Trump has pulled out of the agreement (or indicated our intention to do so). However, it almost puts forward the sense that Gore is a superhero and able to string together the necessary coalition through his own determination. It is a big moment in the film, and adds towards the movie's overall message of optimism about where we might be headed by increasing our use of renewable energy. One of the other main drawbacks in the film is the import that it places on Gore's work in 2015 during the climate talks in Paris. If this were just a question of Gore giving a similar lecture at a number of different places there would be no issue, but when he's giving a talk to a company, and then that company comes up again later in the film, questions arise – is this actually the same company we saw earlier? What, exactly, is the chronology of the events? Because Shenk and Cohen don't clearly provide those answers in the moment, this viewer was jerked out of the film's narrative to stop and wonder and try to piece it all together themselves. While subtlety can be a benefit, it can also be a weakness. The directors of the film do not hold one's hand as they tell the story, dragging them step-by-step from point A to point B. Other elements-like the storytelling-are not as strong. Some of the elements directors Jon Shenk and Bonni Cohen put forward-like the imagery-are powerful. Instead, I can talk about things like the structure of this follow-up to An Inconvenient Truth, the imagery used in it, the story it tells, and the power of the argument to a non-scientist. As a non-scientist, I am not in a position to discuss the scientific merits of any claims made by Al Gore or An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. That doesn't feel like it should be a necessary statement at the top of a review of a documentary, however when it is a film about climate change that is being reviewed, it becomes more important. ![]()
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