New Movie Review: The 11th Hour

There are some movies, Casablanca and The Godfather come to mind, which you should see if you are a fan of movies at all. However, there are some movies, like Schindler's List and Nuit et Brouillard, that you should see because you are human being alive on this planet. The 11th Hour belongs in the latter category.

The Leonardo Dicaprio produced documentary takes a universal look at the problem of global warming, a topic brought into popular culture by Al Gore's Oscar winning documentary from last year, An Inconvenient Truth. The film has the talking head style of so many post-Errol Morris documentaries. In fact, it is a fairly conventional film; but for once, the film art is secondary to the subject matter.

It is not the most well made documentary, but it is effective in as much as it is scary as hell. Expert after expert is brought before the camera to explain what we should already know: our planet is dying, it is our fault, and time is running out. The first hour takes the sort of pessimistic doomsday stance that a documentary like No End in Sight does.

However, The 11th Hour succeeds where lesser documentaries, like No End in Sight, fail. It does not simply present a terrible problem and call it an insurmountable obstacle or refer to it as something that happened that can no longer be helped; The 11th Hour presents real, scientific, technologically based solutions to the problems it presents. The film does not leave us feeling helpless and lost. On the contrary, we are empowered.

Despite the frightening facts presented in the first half, the overall tone of the film is hopeful. The aforementioned experts not only give intelligent descriptions of what is happening, but they posit advice and steps on what we can do to correct it. Few films fall into this category, but this is essential viewing. As a human being alive on this planet, it is essential.

See it?

Yes.