Film Reflection 2: This Changes Everything

Based on Naomi Klein’s book by the same name, This Changes Everything is a documentary film that focuses on climate change in several countries. The film opens with a calm, voice asking, “can I be honest with you? I’ve always kind of hated films about climate change,” which I felt was likely intended to bring in viewers and lead with the expectation that this film would be different than those other climate change films, but then the voice follows with, “is it really possible to be bored by the end of the world?” I felt like this really turned the prior tone around and had the potential to make viewers feel bad for resonating with her initial claim. The film was created by Gunpowder & Sky LLC., whose mission statement expresses their belief in, “creating content that resonates and impacts pop culture conversation, by empowering creators to take risks and experiment relentlessly in the pursuit of novel stories and formats” (Gunpowdersky.com).

Some of the main themes addressed by the film include the legal battles between the Canadian government and the native people of the Beaver Lake Cree nation over land and uses of said land, much like many of the similar debates that we have seen in the US with native groups and their land, the film especially focused on native groups navigating and understanding the laws. The film also covered the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the “throw-away culture of the west,” and the Heartland Institute’s denial of science and perpetration of “extreme capitalism” where one should simply make more of whatever it is that they may want or need.

I thought that the film was well done, but I did not find it as uplifting or different from other climate films as it seems to be believed to be. The film certainly covered themes that are relevant to what we have been talking about in our class and I am interested to see what my classmates thought of the film.

References

Movies, YouTube. 2015. YouTube. Retrieved March 14, 2019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH5YSob6G70).

Anon. n.d. “About Gunpowder & Sky.” Gunpowder and Sky. Retrieved March 15, 2019 (https://gunpowdersky.com/about-us/).