Docs on Climate Change and Hope: The Anthropologist and This Changes Everything

Since Dan and I started our blog, Sustainable Living Tucson, we’ve seen a plethora of films on climate change. Recently we watched “This Changes Everything,” screened as part of the Social Justice series held at the Loft Cinema. In the opening, narrator Stacey Raab admitted that she didn’t want to make another climate change documentary with polar bears. I found her doc in turns infuriating and inspiring. It was particularly painful to see conference attendees from the Heartland Institute (a think tank owned by the Koch brothers) cheering their success in convincing Americans that there was no global warming. But I loved the overall theme that we could rewrite our story. We don’t have to continue the narrative of profit at all cost. We can work together to take care of each other and the planet.

The film shared powerful stories of people from all over the globe uniting to do just that. Members of the first peoples of Alberta, Canada investigated a pipeline oil spill on their ancestral hunting lands. Indigenous people were studying up on the law in order to better fight for their rights. They were even installing their own solar panels. The movie demonstrated how much power people have when they stand together. Villagers in India succeeded in stopping a coal-fired power plant from being built in their backyard by using their bodies to block anyone from the power company from entering their village. People from around the world are now successfully using this ploy. This is the kind of message that people can get behind – one of hope.

Friday night at the Arizona International Film Festival, we had the pleasure of seeing “The Anthropologist.” One of the great things about attending a film festival is hearing the filmmakers illuminate us on their process and what inspired their projects. Director Seth Kramer also commented on how he didn’t want to make yet another climate change movie with polar bears and scientists explaining the greenhouse effect. Fortunately, the National Science Foundation sponsored the project based on the angle of an anthropologist studying the effect of climate change on people.

Compared with other environmental docs I’ve seen, this is a light-hearted romp. It stars a squabbling mother (Mary Bateson) and daughter (Susie Crate.) Susie is your typical American teenager. She doesn’t understand why she has to go with her mom to third world countries when she just wants to stay at home and hang out with friends. The film also featured segments with legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead’s now adult daughter about what life was like growing up in the field. It was included to explore how Susie might turn out.

As audience members we might relate to her discomfort of being dragged along on physically challenging trips to witness communities suffering from the effects of climate change, while being very aware of the great opportunity it is to see breath-taking scenery and colorful cultures.

Their first trip is a sort of family reunion with Susie’s relatives on her father’s side in Siberia. (Her mom met her father while working there as a young anthropologist.) We soon discover that Susie knows the language. In fact, she has a keen ear for languages and blatantly expresses her embarrassment when her mother struggles to communicate. We watch this teen grow as she sees firsthand how climate change is affecting that part of her family. The permafrost has melted causing the ground to turn to mush. The hay they need to feed their cows (their main source of food) has died as well as the trees. The change in Susie is especially evident when they return home and she visits with her friends. You can see it in her eyes as one of her friends says she doesn’t know if she believes in climate change because her father says it isn’t true.

After witnessing the devastation on island villages in the South Pacific being bombarded by the rising sea or the impact of glaciers melting in Peru, it’s hard not to believe in climate change. Traveling along with an anthropologist, we got a glimpse of the effect on the indigenous people, their cultures, and communities. What we learned about people left us with hope. People are durable and capable of change, and will find a way to adapt.

Both of these movies express hope for the people who inhabit this planet that we call home. “The Anthropologist” shows us how people are capable of change and “This Changes Everything” shows how we can change our story to one where we unite to save it.

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Movie blessings!
Jana Segal-Stormont
www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

"The Hundred-Foot Journey" to Foody Paradise

From a young age, Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) was schooled in the art of savoring traditional Indian cooking by his mother. She taught him that food has a soul that holds cherished memories. When his family loses their restaurant and his beloved teacher in a political riot, the Kadams flee India for France. Papa Kadam (Om Puri) sees it as a sign when their brakes give out outside of Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val. A kind stranger, Marguerite, (Charlotte Le Bon) tows them to the village and shares the bounties of her garden with the hungry migrants. They can taste the soul in the local produce. Ignoring the protests of his frustrated children, Papa Kadam immediately sets up an Indian restaurant featuring his talented son as head cook.

“The Hundred-Foot Journey” across the street leads to Madame Mallory’s (Helen Mirren) acclaimed French restaurant (where Marguerite also works as a sous-chef). Their rivalry escalates to all-out war. Despite being on opposite sides of the warring factions, Hassan and Marguerite can’t deny their common passion for food. They put great care into their cooking. Food is more than nourishment, it is love: comforting, healing, and sensual. Sharing it bonds families and communities. It can even bridge cultures. But they get so caught up in the competition for fame and success, that they lose track of love.

This film is a foody’s feel good paradise. But it has more to say. It touches on our fear of outsiders and celebrates what immigrants bring to their host country. It shows how people from different cultures can find common ground.

curry omelette

In an interview about the film, executive producer Oprah Winfrey expanded, "Food blends cultures and allows us to have just a little peek into someone else's life... It is about a hundred foot divide between cultures." Winfrey chose the book on which the film is based as a "favorite summer read" in 2010. She said, "It’s about human beings coming to understand other human beings and more importantly, after you get to experience or step into somebody else’s shoes or see them for a real human being, how you understand that you’re really more alike than you are different.”

Partaking of this sweet confection, we get a chance to savor the pleasures we all enjoy: lush vibrant landscapes, delectable cuisine, funny family quirks, and the thrill of a first kiss. The very act of sharing cultural traditions removes the barriers that separate us.

Movie blessings!
Jana Segal
reelinspiration.blogspot.com

Savoring "The Lunchbox"

“The Lunchbox” is a breakthrough film for India because it steers clear of the usual showstopper musical numbers and emoting melodrama popular in Bollywood productions. Instead, it delivers a taste of bitter-sweet “slice of life,” spiced with pinches of humor. Multiple layers are delivered in the tiffin lunchbox.

Director/Writer Ritesh Batra started off doing research for a documentary on the Babbawala, the 125 year-old tradition of delivering tiffin lunches from homes and restaurants to the work place. The lunchboxes represent the countless generic Mumbia workers who cram onto trains to commute to their jobs every day. In fact, the lunchboxes make the same commute. Famous for its efficiency, it is said that only one in a million lunchboxes is ever lost. That story is told in, “The Lunchbox.”

Ila (Nimrat Kaur), a lonely housewife, takes her auntie’s advice and recipe (shouted down from the apartment above) to win her husband’s love by sending a very special meal in his lunchbox. When it comes back empty, Ila anxiously awaits his return. When he says that it was OK, that the cauliflower was very good; she realizes that someone else has eaten the meal and sends a note thanking the stranger for the compliment of “licking it clean.” She also sends along her husband’s favorite dish. The lunchbox is delivered to Saajan (Irrfan Khan), a grouchy widower, who only wants to be left alone until his imminent retirement. He uses the excuse of going to lunch to avoid teaching his eager protégé (Nawazuddin Siddiqui). The lunchbox is returned empty with a note saying only that there was too much salt. Auntie (the voice of Bharatic Achekar) isn’t having any of his rudeness, and sends down a basket full of hot chilis to include in the next day’s lunch.

Auntie’s little lesson succeeds in teaching him empathy for others. To relieve his burning mouth, Saajan buys a banana from a street vendor and notices that other employees can only afford a banana for lunch. When he sees that his pesky protégé only has a banana and apple for lunch, he ends up sharing his precious lunch with him.

Is it a miracle or just an error that the lunchbox was delivered to the wrong address? It is certainly a miracle that these two lonely people, lost in the modern world, connect over a good meal and details of their lives scribbled on scraps of paper. The director sets up hints of a miracle with magic realistic flourishes - like the fly that connects their two worlds. In the scene transition, the director cuts from Saajan swatting the pesky fly in the marketplace to Ila swatting one at home.

This same device is used with ceiling fans. Ila tells how Auntie’s husband had been in a coma for 15 years. One day he woke up and started staring at the oriental ceiling fan. Ever since he has stared at that fan all day, every day. He wakes up in the morning and stares at the fan. One day the power goes off causing the fan to stop and uncle’s heart slowed down. Auntie believes it is the fan that keeps him alive, so she has a generator installed that day. As Saajan reads about it, the power goes off at work and all the ceiling fans stop. It is a shared metaphor for being trapped in a meaningless existence. “Uncle Deshpande stares at his fan. My husband stares at his phone as if nothing else exists. Maybe nothing else does.” Saajan writes back that things have changed since her uncle was a worker. “Everyone works so they can have what everyone else does. If Mr. Deshpande woke up and went to work these days, he would go back to his ceiling fan.” 

The rush-hour commute represents how people are too busy working to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Their motivation flashes by on billboards – like the billboard that honors those who excel at the university. But if you pause to look closer, you will see that the honorees don’t look happy. Everyday, the lunchboxes commute like the workers. This lunchtime ritual is the highlight of their day when workers get a taste of home or at least of the old ways. The miraculous appearance of that special lunch nudges Saajan out of his solitude. His protégé’s expression of pleasure for the wonderful lunches teaches Saajan to appreciate them too. During the crowded train commute, the protégé finds a way to enjoy more time with his girlfriend by cutting the vegetables for their dinner.

When things become unbearable with her distant husband, Ila writes Saajan about moving to a place her daughter heard of in school. She shares her fantasy with Saajan. “In Bhutan everyone is happy. They don’t have Gross Domestic Product, only Gross National Happiness.” Saajan tells his protégé that he is thinking of going to Bhutan, rather than the retirement town of Nasik. His protégé responds that he has only been to Saudi Arabia, but, “Sometimes the wrong train will get you to the right station.”

This time the wrong train delivered “The Lunchbox” to the right station. And it was delicious. 

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal 

www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

"The Darjeeling Limited"

By Guest Reviewer
Mike McMullen

You either like Wes Anderson movies or you don't. I have met few people who feel lukewarm about them. Not that they hate them, it's just "not their type". Well they are exactly my type. Quirky, awkward at times, but always with heart.

"The Darjeeling Limited," is no exception. Staring Owen Wilson (as Francis), Adrian Brody (Peter) and Jason Schwartzman (Jack) as three brothers who have had a distant relationship with one another since their father died. Francis gets them all together on a train in India to take a "spiritual journey and become brothers again". Francis is compulsive, having an itinerary written for the trip. Peter is a kleptomaniac (sort of) and is expecting a baby with his wife, which ruins his plans of eventually getting divorced. And Peter is, hard to nail down. He makes long distance calls to check in on his "ex"-girlfriends answering machine. He also has sex with the "stewardess" (Rita) on the train. You get the sense he feels rootless. Rita asks him what's wrong with him. He answers "let me think about that."

The film does take place in India, and you certainly do see a lot of the culture. It's not a living Places to See in India book though. It doesn't make any attempt to show us the India of 'Gandhi', or the India of 'Seven Years in Tibet'. It shows us the India of India. The characters walk among people, not around them. They buy trinkets (and a cobra) at the street market.

The film does weave, as Anderson films are prone to do, and arrives at the credits. Maybe not a solid point, or end. You do get the sense that through this journey, something deep has happened to these men. If it was spiritual or not, we are not told. Maybe the brothers don't know themselves. But there is healing, there is redemption in a way. The men at the end of the film are not the ones we meet at the beginning, but they are the same. The last shot is a train going to a new destination. Fitting, because that is the story of these brothers. At the end of the film, the next chapter in their lives is just starting.

This is a very nice film. It's not overbearing, but not listless either. It does meander, but knows that not all who wander are lost.

For more reviews from Mike, visit: http://mikeatthemovies.blogspot.com/