Disrupting My Spirit!

Disruption definitely disrupted my spirit. Don't watch at night because, girllllll, the drama. I don't mean drama, as in melodramatic, I mean drama as in, eerie music, fast paced jump cuts,  overhead shots, and voice-overs. The combination of all of these key formal elements along with the severity of the topic gives a chilling tone to the documentary. Throughout the entire documentary the fast paced, string instruments that crescendo low and high at certain high points in the story add to the suspense/thriller aspect of the film. 

The film opens with a quote from Frederick Douglas. Fade to black, and the eerie music begins, with a voice over of astronauts on the moon appreciating Earth as they know it. This is the setup of the film. Appreciating the Earth as a whole, because the theme of the film is disregarding the health of the Earth for the good of a select few that hold economic power. 

Other points in the film focus on the organization of the largest climate march in history. It seems like the key to its organization was the collective of numerous grass roots organizations that came together to march as one. Solidarity among the numerous organizations/cultures allowed for a unified movement to show the immense power of the people. The jump cuts to different grass roots leaders organizing and encouraging their respective communities to march for climate change emphasizes the power of the grass roots movement, the power in unifying the movement, and the power of the people whom are disproportionately affected by climate change. 

An aspect of the film that I really enjoyed was the animation that was used as a teaching tool as well as a timeline agent to show the historical basis behind climate change. A lot of backlash from climate change comes from people who are too ignorant about the subject to believe that the effects are not real simply because they are privileged enough to not feel them. Yet!

The movement also focuses on how big corporations, the largest carbon emitters, can basically pollute the air at extremely large rates for free. Yet as Van Jones so eloquently says, "we can't litter for free, you pay a fine". So why do big corporations get to do as they please? They have the money to pay for legislation and lobbying for tax breaks. Not only do they emit this dangerous amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere they get rewarded for doing it. 

Overall, Disruption, served a purpose to ignite some sort of change in its audience. The suspenseful and dramatic music and voice overs contributed to the severity of the subject. One woman even said that people don't react to things unless a gun is to your head. So the level of severity must be high for people to understand that if we don't make a change now, your kids will certainly feel it in the future. Hence the very clever addition of a ticking clock as background music to emphasize that time is of the essence.