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AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH Send This Review to a Friend
I’m late in getting to the environmental documentary starring Al Gore, but fortunately, dire predications aside, we remain around to make the film still relevant. How long that will be is a subject for deep concern for the entire planet. In this remarkably lucid film directed by Davis Guggenheim and using Al Gore’s lectures on the subject as the framework, the dangers of global warming are laid out so clearly and frighteningly that even the most scientifically challenged among us should be able to understand the issues.
The illustrations of film clips and graphs blend smoothly with Gore’s easy, congenial way of talking, whether addressing a group, in close-up or with voice-over recollections of his family and childhood. There are no signs of the stiffness attributed to Gore when he was a candidate for president. He shows personality plus here, and should he decide to run for the presidency again, he gives evidence of being a far stronger candidate.
The film is also part expose. It tears to shreds the manipulations of those who try to cast doubt on the scientific facts about environmental perils for self-serving economic reasons. Gore states clearly, citing facts that back him up, that the global warming that has been progressing is reality and that scientists agree on the subject. Some scary maps are introduced to show the consequences of meltdowns that make the oceans rise, including a good part of Manhattan being underwater in the future if the trend is not reversed. Worldwide, there would be millions and millions of casualties and displacements.
That’s the substance of the film which exhorts everyone to take actions to reduce the emissions that produce global warming and force political policies that tackle the problem instead of attempting to ignore it. But there’s another byproduct of this film, at least for this reviewer.
I listen to articulate Al Gore and think of the contrast of inarticulate President Bush, just, of course, a surface observation, but one that reminds us of differences between the two men with respect to policies as well as bearing. I can almost weep in contemplating how different the world would be if the Florida results of the election had not be skewered, and if the 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court that put Bush in office had been different. Would we be mired in Iraq? How many thousands would not have been killed or maimed in the Iraq adventure that had nothing to do with attacks against us? Would the danger of terrorism and hatred of America have increased to the present extent? Would the mid-East be newly aflame?
“An Inconvenient Truth,” not only well made but tremendously important, stimulates thoughts about the environment in the broadest sense. It is a major film for our time. A Paramount Classics release.
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