Franny Armstrong’s ambitious drama-sci fi-documentary-animation “The Age of Stupid”, hailed as one of the most powerful movies on climate change to date, was premiered on Saturday in Jakarta, a month after its worldwide release. Organizations part of The Global Coalition for Climate Action (GCCA) based in Jakarta such as WWF, Greenpeace and Oxfam, have partnered up with ITDP to hold an eco-friendly green carpet event at a historic landmark in the heart of Jakarta. The screening took place in a charming open air setting until it started to rain cats and dogs. And I’m talking about the kind off tropical downpour that turns from nothing to massive in a matter of split seconds. The audience had to scramble to the nearest shelter, as most of them, including myself, sat on the ground. The area was promptly flooded and I left the scene soaking wet. Talk about climate change.

Having only been halfway through the movie, what I would say may not do justice to the movie. The thinking behind the plot may be fresh, but the overall story telling could have been stronger. The effects of climate change depicted in the year 2055 were built into landscapes that were no familiar and left too many traces of the present. One would expect that Sydney would look entirely different in 40 years and would somehow be built in such a way that would prevent a bush fire torching the Opera House. Also, the collapse of societies were visually depicted in a savage way equivalent to the Middle Ages (One would think that the forms of conflict would take a more high tech shape in 40 years). The poor graphics did not serve the best of the movie either.

And then there’s this guy who finds himself seemingly in all solitude in the fortress-like built National Archive facility located off shore some ocean, who started rumbling lines that could have come out of a handbook for climate change activism while randomly screening footage on climate change impacts which includes events of extreme weather, consumerism and the war for oil.

That would be almost too much for anyone to bear, except for the fact that the mini documentaries are done extremely well. The individual clips screened featured very candid moments that were profound. When it followed the heroic story of an ordinary guy in New Orleans who rescued tens of people with his little boat in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it captured a moving moment when the hero’s brave smile dissipated into sheer frustration at the sight of his personal material devastation. Similarly, it featured profound words of wisdom were spoken by a 82-year old guide of the French Alps, who’s lived to see the glaciers melting faster than ever and the generation of his grandchildren embracing destructive consumerism. Heart-wrenching were also scenes out of a family’s struggle for survival after fleeing war-torn Iraq. People’s eyes were glazed over when the children’s testimonials of hardship, grief and hopes were weaved into shots of them enacting a bloody shooting.

This is where the movie scored big for me, but at the same time the docu clips were individually so strong as such that you could chop them out, run them separately and they’d still make the same impact. The movie also featured a couple of outstanding animation that were weaved into the documentaries to bridge the context from one clip to the other. The animations were graphically excellent and told the story in a fresh and engaging way. You could almost cut them out of the movie and they’d instantly turn viral, as compelling as they were. So it’s both and advantage and a weakness, with Postlethwaite blending more and more into the background.

Yet the strength in “The Age of Stupid” after all, is its underlying passion. This is a piece of work that strongly showcases that, and more, despite of all its flaws. That really poured down on us, well, before the rain did! You could just tell (and you can’t help admire) the countless hours of hard work dedicated to piecing everything together. Hence, in my view, everything else becomes tolerable, to some extent event appreciated. I’m really curious to see how all the different clips converge and whether this movie will rise as a resource as powerful and eye-opening as Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. If you’re part of the GCCA folks here in Jakarta, please know that I’m eagerly awaiting a re-schedule of the screening!

Posted via email from Greenologic