Two films

[qatsi]

It's been a busy week with two films this week at Reading Film Theatre. On Tuesday I went to see 2040. I found myself uneasy at a handful of Extinction Rebellion supporters in the audience; I suppose protest never got anywhere by leaving people in their comfort zones, but they do remind me of the Yes Minister joke that the Greenham Common camp was "a protest against Men, the USA, and Nuclear Weapons - in that order". It also irritated me that the film's opening credits stated that the production had been fully carbon-offset, and began with Damon Gameau boarding a plane. If carbon offsetting is just a matter of paying a tenner extra for a flight and washing your hands of it, then it shouldn't be an option, governments should just legislate for it. But overall the film was better; rather than paint a doom-and-gloom picture of life in the future, Gameau shows us what is already possible, and how it could have a positive impact if more widely adopted. Solar power and micro-grids are no-brainers; driverless cars seem inevitable though always just a bit further off than you had thought; a return to more traditional agricultural and land stewardship methods, but with smarter technology; and giant seaweed colonies to absorb additional CO₂.

On Thursday it was the turn of Harriet, based on the life of Harriet Tubman. Perhaps this was selective and dramatised to produce a more entertaining film, but it seemed to have honesty in its essentials, and there were good performances all round.