Post by StevePulaski on Jul 1, 2013 21:36:49 GMT -5
Gasland (2009)
Directed by: Josh Fox
Directed by: Josh Fox
A man lights his chemical-ridden water on fire in Josh Fox's Gasland.
Rating: ★★½
Ever wonder what would happen if an educated filmmaker who knew many, many things about a certain subject were to make a documentary on the specific subject and conduct it along the lines of an extremely independent, intimate, mumblecore film? Josh Fox fulfills the demand and possibly creates a new niche with his film Gasland, which explores the controversial practice called hydraulic fracturing, informally known as "fracking."
A map detailing how the hydraulic fracturing process is conducted.
Fracking is the process where rock is broken apart - or fractured - using a highly-pressurized mix of water and chemicals. The machine that conducts this process goes underground and works to strike natural gases and petroleum that will finds its way into a well, where it will be extracted. The process would be so helpful if it wasn't so damn crooked and harmful, Fox states from a deeply-affected point-of-view. He grew up in Milanville, Pennsylvania, near a long Delaware stream, and since Pennsylvania has become a haven for fracking, he fears his safety is at risk since fracking comes with such large, unfathomable consequences.
Fox is a one-man army, taking his camera all across the state and filming residents out in the middle of desolate nowhere that have had their water contaminated and their safety sacrificed for the good of large natural gas corporations that are in it for the money and power. Fox speaks to outraged, extremely worried locals who haven't been able to drink, bathe, or adequately use their water because it has an odd-color and a metallic-like taste that began since nearby fracking took place. When the water samples are tested, large amounts of unpronounceable chemicals are found to exist in the water, several of them known cancer-causers that also lurk in the air. The residents are not just helpless but anemic in the face of the big companies. If they choose to stay, what are the long term effects of fracking on their health? And if they leave, the corporations will have less trouble and less guilt about contaminating the land and the area.
Boy, would this topic be interesting and thought-provoking if it was more digestible to the common-man. I fear that many will be lost in the complexity of the fracking process and the confusing, often verbose way Fox explains it in Gasland. One of the purposes of a documentary is to inform a viewer, but that is hard to accomplish when the analytical side of the film is much too deep and confusing. Gasland had me by the hand for about forty-five minutes before it plunged so deeply into the processes it takes to frack, how chemical tests were conducted, and how the legislation process was dealing with the issue that I was left drowning in a sea of facts and confusion. How could a detailed film be so unclear and complicated in its presentation?
Furthermore, the way Fox conducts the documentary is very questionable. Returning to my mumblecore analogy, his narration during the film is sleepy and dreamlike, fitting for more of a microbudget independent feature than an informative piece of film. When Fox reminisces about the days him and his family gathered in their Milanville home and enjoyed each others company is when the narration feels fitting and welcome, since it accentuates a personal, intimate time in the man's life. To hear him narrate the complex details about the natural gas industry and the processes of natural gas extraction in this dreary, monotonous tone-of-voice is when the film becomes grating and hard to listen to.
Regardless, I admire some of the directorial choices Fox chose to do, such as focus heavily on people directly affected by the process rather than talking heads who have an opinion on it. While I question the possibility of reforming the natural gas extraction process greatly to not harm anyone (if there is a way that could even be done), I feel that too often do we hear a great idea and then forget potential consequences. It's so easy for me to sit in my suburban home in Illinois and praise fracking, but what if I was the one in the middle of scenic nowhere, with a wife and a young child - maybe a dog - and I was fearful of the air I breath and the water in my tap due to fracking in my well. Fracking that I thought would boon the economy and assist me in my financial state. I'd be disgusted and, most of all, deplored at the thought the country that promises everyone has a voice allows things like this to go with no regulation or reformation when it is hurting many, many people. It's the act of putting yourself in someone else's shoes and imagining dealing with it yourself.
Gasland may make smart choices in terms of what it focuses on, but finally, by the end of the film, I was convinced I've seen a film that exercises in the "statistical documentary" format. It's a format that other documentaries such as Food, Inc and An Inconvenient Truth have taken, which is bat off numerous statistics, place blame on almost everyone else (Gasland, thankfully, puts the blame in the right place), but simultaneously not offer any solutions or even any proposals as to how this problem could potentially be fixed. When watching all three of these documentaries, I felt anemic and out of options. If the films had suggested something I could do to curb this issue, I'd feel that this was a documentary that did its job. Gasland has no problem alerting us about the issue at hand, but it doesn't even propose a solution.
It's not that I agree with the idea of fracking, I simply wish the film that was panning the practice of fracking would simply conduct itself more like a documentary rather than an over-complicated, sometimes tedious attempt at an indie film. I may need to watch a pro-fracking documentary just to try and balance each side to make a uniformed decision on what my opinion actually is. Fox has a Gasland: Part II coming soon, which will focus on the long-term effects on fracking and what it could potentially do if it continues to go unregulated. Let's hope one of them is not make us narrate a film in an incessant, sleepy tone.
Starring: Josh Fox. Directed by: Josh Fox.