People go to movies to escape. So, why should you go see the documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth"?
The prospect of global warming is worrisome on such a scale that there is an escape-like compulsion to commit two hours focusing intensely on it. By doing so, you can put your concerns in a box. The commitment attached to the immense, daunting implications can be dodged for the mere price of a movie ticket. See "An Inconvenient Truth" and you can escape the nagging feeling that you are ignoring the unignorable.
Whether you can escape or not, this documentary film is more engaging than it is depressing. Part and parcel with its polish and stylishness, its heaviness manages an entertaining academic tenor. And its glimmer of hope is almost enough to make you need to believe in the true promise of the political process. The key phrase here is not "almost enough." It is "need to believe."
Politics. It is the gnarly dilemma of "An Inconvenient Truth." On the one hand, the implications of global warming are not about politics. If global warming is happening, as suggested by this film, the consequences drown partisan distinctions like Republican and Democrat. On the other hand, this issue turns us into Planet Politics as never before. It puts even nuclear proliferation in perspective. To quash global warming, we need far more than tacit agreements never to be (the second to be) the first to launch a nuclear strike.
This cinematic event is about a moral imperative to regard the science, face the case and rise to the occasion. Granted, this film does leverage a few convenient opportunities to slap the current administration. However, that political hand really does extend to everyone to pursue a moral imperative that must drive political service as it never has.
Soon, the political imperative (one can only hope it is not too late for the moral imperative) will be driven by the economic imperative. It is fair to wonder why Democrat AND Republican "corporationeers" aren't knocking each other down trying to claim a new age of leadership atop green profit mongering.
Al Gore. He is the pink donkey in the middle of "An Inconvenient Truth." No, the case he makes is not pink. Actually, it is radically centrist. Gore brays Democrat, but more than that, he is solidly professorial in this film. He shows clear and engaging command over the material he has presented a thousand times worldwide.
It is an effective movie-making tactic to switch the story back and forth between Gore the consummate professor of his subject matter, and Gore the man who desperately wants to be fully appreciated. Distractingly, Gore continues to be largely uncharismatic.
The toughest obstacle for "An Inconvenient Truth" is the hype against hope that nothing can be done about global warming, whether it's caused by techno-human consumption run amok or not. This couples with the hope against hype that global warming is merely a theory, despite the fact that essentially 100 percent of the scientific literature projects a whopping sopping future.
The future listens silently. The politics of naysaying and of championing the issues aside, one might compress the widespread, scientifically grounded gauntlet thus: Would you take a shot at your only daughter's head using a six-chambered gun loaded with one bullet? Say there is a 17-percent chance that your only planet will experience the kind of consequences posited in "An Inconvenient Truth." How urgently and fully would you act to keep it from happening?
"I don't know. Hey, when's the next James Bond movie coming out?" Meanwhile, "An Inconvenient Truth" is an unparalleled cliffhanger, and we are all burdened with a license to kill.