film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Rosalynn Try-Hane

  • Review: Racing Extinction

    Who wants to be a superhero? The question is doesn’t. I know I do and in watching Racing Extinction by Louie Psihoyos, the oscar winning director of The Cove (2009), his claim, albeit on the surface simple and achievable, is to do just one thing and you could save the planet.

    According to one expert interviewed on Racing Extinction in 100 years 50% of the world’s species will be extinct. We are all have a part in this extinction yet as Louie Psihoyos says near the start of the documentary: “…think of this qs the biggest story in the world. We’re living in the age of dinosaurs but we could do something about it.”

    The documentary then takes the familiar route of experts talking about the rate of extinction with one amongst them cataloguing sounds of species – some now extinct as well as photographing species. There are some powerful scenes in there and one phrase that packed a punch for me was the expert compiling the forensic arc: “The whole world is singing…we’ve just stopped listening.”

    All of that is interesting and then the meat (pardon the pun) of the documentary focuses on China and the illegal shark fin business as well as David Doubilet educating the viewer that extinction is two fold direct and indirect. The direct impact is by man – raising too much cattle, CO2 emissions and then the indirect impact the acidification of the oceans. It’s not until the end of the documentary that the viewer is told what they can do in order to reduce the rate of extinction: going meat free once a week, reduce the use of cars etc.

    At the end it comes down to this – is it convincing and whether you believe the data. However, whether you feel motivated to make a change after watching the documentary is one thing but what is for certain it is certainly educational, engaging and interesting to watch.

    Racing Extinction airs on Discovery Channel UK at 9pm on Wednesday 2 December.

  • Interview: Louie Psihoyos, Director Of Racing Extinction

    In 100 years half of the world’s species will be extinct. What can you do about it? Well according to the director of Racing Extinction – just do one thing. We are all in this together and Louie Psihoyos didn’t set out to make a movie but create a movement to get everyone to make one change that will in turn help save the planet. I sat down with him to hear exactly the: how, what, why, when on extinction, activism and how his films are weapons of mass construction!

    You mentioned in the film that the project started from reading a piece in the FT [Financial Times], is that correct?

    It didn’t really start there but yeah it was the Financial Times I was reading in Germany that was talking about mass extinction. But really it got started when I was at Sundance. I took two books one was, a friend of mine, wrote Terror [He and] I dug dinosaurs with him and early mammals in the Gobi desert. He’s talking about how we’re losing species faster than mankind’s ability to record even that they are even on the planet with us. I thought that was pretty depressing. I picked up another book A Reef In Time by Charles Veron about the great barrier reef and how we’re losing the core reef right now because of acidification which always prefaces mass extinction. I thought ok I wrote a book about palentogy and I didn’t know about the mass extinction going on right now and to me was the shocking news and so it was then that I decided to do a film about it. It was hugely daunting because how do you give people a sense of the scale

    Exactly and when I was watching your documentary I thought it’s so vast. It’s minute and vast at the same time, did you ever think maybe about doing your film on mass extinction and then focus in on one thing like man’s direct impact and then do volume 2 indirect impact?

    First of all there’s a mass extinction that’s caused by several drivers so it’s not just one thing. I didn’t want to focus in on one driver because people could say: I don’t drive a car so carbon dioxide might not be the biggest problem and I don’t traffic endangered species so there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s something everybody can do to stop this. We made a conscience decision early on to not make the bad guys: other people, other governments, other corporations. Each one of us we cannot get through our day without having an impact not just on the environment around us but future generations – every action we do today is going to affect you know the planet millions of years to come.

    Let me explain…burning of fossil fuels is acidifying the oceans at this massive rate and I wanted people to know everyone can do something to reduce their carbon footprint that’s why we’ve been working on a campaign for the last two years. We realised after the first film I did – The Cove – spent all that money and time trying to make a good film and then first person came out after the film they said this is great what can I do to help. The second person. The campaign is as important as the film. So I told the crew we’re not making a movie we’re starting a movement. The most important part of the film to me is what people can do once they get out of the film so going to racingextinction.com and finding the one thing that they can do.

    Sure and there’s a figure in the film – 1.25 billion cows on the planet, but for me when I was watching it you said you wanted to focus in on in the individual but a lot of it was focused in on South East Asia the manta rays and the shark fins. I didn’t see any – cattle farms in the US – the focus felt directed at developing countries rather than developed.

    We’re in there. We’re represented pretty heavily and…the US is number 2 importer of illegal wildlife. We can’t talk about everything in the film. I mean America is by far the largest producer of carbon dioxide per capita but by country China is but there’s far more people in China so it gets reduced. We do focus in on Asia but we focus in on ourselves. I said the worst thing you can do to the environment is make a film about it. That’s hard to admit

    I thought that was brave you said that at the beginning of the film

    We had to do it because everyone is a hypocrite including myself. We do massive amount of things. I try to live my life as a monk as much as I can. I flew here yesterday and blew my carbon budget in a single day. They say you have to break a few eggs to start an omelette but we set aside acres of rainforest that’s how we offset our carbon budget. My own organisation we set up solar panels and we generated a 140% of our energy off the roof and that means I get cheques from the electric company.

    It’s not a movie it’s a movement and so isn’t there a danger with the hashtag do one thing – it’s quite disposable. You tweet it – give up meat, go veggie and forget about it. It’s a movement like the ice bucket thing. Is there not a danger that people don’t fully engage.

    We’re pretty good at what we do starting movements and we’ve been working on the Cove issues for 6 years and we haven’t stopped and recently bought the rights back to that movie and we’re giving it away for free in Japan. We’re really deeply concerned by these issues and we stay on them until we solve them. They were killing 23,000 dolphins and porpoises in Japan and now they’re killing less than 6,000 and we won’t stop until the last dolphin is freed. That’s the way we operate. We’re a small organisation and care about these issues. How do we mobilise? I made the Cove in my backyard. I thought who is going to want to help me on this issue and now we have a million people signed up and those million people can get performers not to perform at Seaworld. Now with Discovery [channel]- with 220 countries on a single day hopefully that million people become ten or hundred million people so we can get the politicians to do the right thing.

    Sure…how do you maintain it. This is really powerful. It’s our very existence as man. You can watch this and think this is so vast – am I doing any good by going meat free one day a week – is it doing any good?

    The average person in the UK eats 10,400 animals in their lifetime

    Ok

    Ok, that’s a lot of animals

    Try to think about raising all those animals and what they need to be fed, try to think of the ineffiecies of just keeping them in one cow fed. It’s like going to the bank and saying here’s a dollar, give me back a nickel [5 cents] and I’ll be happy with it. That’s the kind of scale we’re talking about for the environment. We’re taking out far more resources than we should and like we say in the film – the raising of meat for human consumption causes far more greenhouse gases than all the emissions from the transportation sector. So just one day out of every week, that’s one seventh of those 10,000 animals that aren’t being killed and it’s healthier for yourself. Everybody feels like they can’t be changed. They get involved in campaigns. We worked on a campaign to get UPS to stop the importation of shark fins and it took 185,000 signatures and once that happened it. Everybody becomes part of that and now it’s like lets work on Fedex. Once people get involved in one thing and they see a success it is contagious.

    Movements seem to be disposable – this is a lifestyle. When you are watching the documentary the beginning part – its beautiful. I got overload and then at the end you flash up some of things we can do and we can change but if I had seen that at the beginning – these are my practical steps – I’d have been on board straight away.

    Well you actually saw that if you see the way the film is constructed at the beginning of the film – early on in the first act – Charles Veron is talking about greenhouse gases and cows – setting you up and embedded in the exposition of the film. All the solutions are in the film are seeding it. It’s not just tacted on.

    Your message is powerful yet it gets slightly lost with the beautiful minds talking about issues and then having to wait until to the end to find out what the practical steps are.

    You have to wait even further to get on the campaign. If you start preaching right away I’m going to lose everybody – except half a dozen vegan friends – we don’t need to talk to them they are already on the same page. Those people who saw An Inconvenient Truth we want to reach [other] people Republicans etc. It is a lifestyle but I think you have to be careful not to preach to people. A lot of people are sceptical this guy is trying to take away: my meat, my car and he’s trying to put solar panels on my roof. It sounds like we’ve evangelising and we are but I think you have to be careful how you talk about it.

    Racing Extinction airs on Discovery Channel UK at 9pm on Wednesday 2nd December.

  • Interview: Mike Fraser – Director Of The Honourable Rebel

    The Honourable Rebel hits UK cinema screens on 4 December and BRWC was lucky enough to ask its director Mike Fraser, who has over 47 years of industry experience about what drew him to the story of the indomitable and inimitable: Elizabeth Montagu, co-writing the script with Elizabeth’s nephew and the need to temper and balance out even the most exciting stories!

    What attracted you to this project?

    I was immediately attracted by her story. Here was a woman born in the first decade of the 20th century who had the courage, determination, ability, intelligence and quick wittedness to lead a life that most people could only ever dream of or watch in the cinema or on television and yet in this case it was real.

    What do you think is so compelling about Elizabeth Montagu’s life story?

    Her story is so compelling because of her character. She was feisty, talented, impulsive, interesting and interested, loved music, her home at Beaulieu and her fellow man, and woman.

    Why did you decide to use a mixed narrative to tell this story: the dramatic scenes as well as interviews with people who knew Elizabeth Montagu?

    There was no footage of her. None of her peers (she would have been 105 when we made the film had she lived) could be interviewed. So I used a mixture of dramatic feature film re-enaction interspersed with interviews with people who knew her in later life, to remind us that this was a real story and of course the inimitable Diana Rigg narration with that wonderful, tremulous voice of an elderly lady looking back on her very exciting life and how she felt at the time.

    Whilst it is an interesting documentary, it struck me that it would also work as a thrilling feature film: were you ever tempted to scrap the documentary and shoot it as a straight feature film?

    Her story is not just interesting but also thrilling, so I was very tempted to make it into a feature film, but my budget was limited and there is too much to tell. There is enough material in the book to make 30 x 1 hour episodes for television.. I had just enough money, if I was careful, to make a 97 minute documentary drama feature.

    Do you think there is a risk of information overload from having the dramatic re-enaction, the wonderful Dame Diana Rigg narration and interviews with people who knew Elizabeth Montagu? Was there ever a point where you were tempted to edit out the interviews with people who knew Elizabeth?

    With such an incredible story over a period of many years there was a risk of information overload. I needed to create a balance between her exciting life and real people talking about her. These two then coupled with the inimitable Diana Rigg describing, as if she was Elizabeth reading from her own book, how she felt at certain moments during the film, her story. The fact that we were able to shoot the film mainly at and around Palace House in the beautiful Beaulieu Estate also gave it that realism.

    Watching this documentary, I wondered whether it might have been more engaging to just focus on one part of her life rather than telling from cradle to grave. Why did you think it important to tell the story in the way you did?

    There were so many chapters and stories in her autobiography that it would have been impossible to choose one part to focus upon. I knew that I had a maximum hundred minutes to tell the story and rather than focus on just one point of her life I decided to make it as a ripping yarn with narration and interviews folded into it.

    You co-wrote this documentary with others including Ralph Montagu – was that beneficial or were you worried you wouldn’t be able to tell the story as you would like given Ralph’s participation?

    It was very easy to co-write this film with Ralph Montagu. We had collaborated before on a cut-down version of his father’s life and no one knew more about his aunt and her book than him. He edited her original transcript.

    The casting of Elizabeth is central to engaging the audience in her story – how did Dorothea Myer-Bennett get involved in the project?

    Dorothea Myer-Bennett was the first of 17 actresses who auditioned for the part. She walked out of the room. I turned to my casting director and two other colleagues and said we need not look any further. They reminded me that I had 16 other people to audition for the part. So we continued. It turned out that six of them were also superb. So the seven returned for a later audition. I still chose Dorothea. The others were brilliant, but choosing Dorothea was the best decision I made.

    Looking at your filmography you’ve worked on a number of major feature films as editor – would you ever go back or are you now firmly focused on being a director?

    I have been in this industry for 47 years and I have suddenly found that I love telling stories on film so that is what I want to continue to do. Tell stories with a beginning, a middle and an end and a distinct lack of visual effects and any sort of technical trickery which muddles that storytelling.

  • The BRWC Review: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 (2015)

    Have you ever been so hungry that there comes a point when that hunger disappears? A year is a long time to stay hungry for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) says to Katniss Everdine (Jennifer Lawrence): “You Katniss you rarely disappoint”, unfortunately this would be that rare occasion Haymitch. I was expecting a three course meal to satisfy my hunger and all I received was; a cold sandwich, loquacious social and political commentary and an ending that made me think: true or not true?

    I have a confession to make: I’ve only seen the first instalment of the Hunger Games! I thought this is interesting a little darker than that vampire trilogy featuring a female protagonist that is; part feminist, part Greek goodness with a smattering of vulnerability and hormones coursing through her veins. In any event even if a film is part of a trilogy it should be able to stand on its’ own and enjoyed singularly. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is not that type of film. We pick up right where part 1 finished or so I presume. It might have been nice to have had a brief recap not least because as interesting a character as Katniss Everdine is – a year is a long time. The gang is all here: Peeta is psychotic after his interrogation at the hands of President Snow and the rebels are battling against President Snow and each other. This is the “final Hunger Games” – the 13 districts have united for their very survival. Panem is in the midst of war. Will President Snow be defeated by President Alma Coin and what about the truth that our heroine must protect at all cost?

    The film is for diehard fans or individuals who just have to know what happens to Katniss and the gang. All I will say is prepare for heartbreak as main characters meet rather unfortunate ends. There are one or two “scary” scenes and I say that as one who is a proud scaredy cat and avoids horror films. The social commentary about refugees grew a bit thin after a while – this is after all a film aimed at the tween and teen market.

    The problem big franchises like The Hunger Games, The Hobbit, Twilight etc face is keeping the momentum going with a year between the final instalments. I felt it borrowed heavily from Star Wars in certain scenes, there were moments when I thought are those storm troopers alas not, it might have added much needed zest. I was glad when it ended and I cannot even recall the final scene. I remember thinking is that it but I couldn’t tell you what the final scene was. Katniss looked tired and emotional throughout most of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 2 and the tiredness was definitely contagious!

    The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 2 opens nationwide on 19 November.

  • The BRWC Review: He Named Me Malala

    What’s in a name? A lot and especially in the title of this documentary directed by David Guggenheim: He Named Me Malala. The documentary is about the youngest Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai. However, rather than calling the documentary: Malala or I am Malala, the title and narrative makes it inadvertently about the man behind Malala, her father Ziauddin Yousafzai, that by the end of 87 minutes will leave you questioning just what is the real story behind the this almost mythical Malala.

    She is the school girl who stood up to the Taliban when they invaded and occupied Pakistan’s Swat Valley. There is no denying her courage when they, the Taliban, announced that education for girls was banned and all the education they needed was in what clothes to wear and how to cook and clean: she said no. Director, Davis Guggenheim’s documentary does show Malala in the year leading up to the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize award and all the places she visited to promote women’s rights – in Nigeria when the Boko Haram stole 200 girls etc. There’s no denying her education, wit and passion yet we musn’t forget that she is not yet an adult. There are times in the documentary I asked myself would I have had the courage to speak up and how brave she was. When she utters the words: “I am afraid of no one” that is quite true and she took a bullet for that as did two of her friends. Yes, there is where the documentary starts to unravel it was not only Malala who was injured, albeit the gravest of the injuries was suffered by her, however her two friends sitting either side were also shot.

    Her two brothers are also shown in the film Khushal and Atal both very funny but their lives are lived in the shadow of her. Her mother Toor Pekai Yousafzai never says much. What is striking is that her mother is uneducated yet her father is a school teacher, impassioned by rights for all but didn’t apparently feel his wife needed educating, her beauty was enough for her. He also had political ambitions – he was vocal against the Taliban and the impression is that the bullet that Malala took was for him, to teach him a lesson. Once she was well enough and her recovery took time as it would, her father ever present and he is in nearly every shot, he accompanied her on her travels. Is it unfair to say that he saw an opportunity in Malala that would allow him to have a platform to get his views across?

    The documentary’s title comes from the story of Malalai of Maiwand who when all the men were running away from battle – she stood firm and encouraged them. A lone calm voice in a sea of panic and, prophetically, she also took a bullet and died. This is the story that her father Ziauddin would recite to his pregnant wife and their unborn child. However, she says firmly: “My father only have me the name Malalai. He didn’t make me Malalai. I chose this life”. If you say something enough it is convincing and maybe that is what she has done. The documentary left a lot of questions unanswered and a certain doubt as to how freely Malala walked this path of international humanitarian.

    The film was released in cinemas nationwide from Friday 6 November.