Cinema In Support of Radical Environmental Action
Cinema In Support of Radical Environmental Action
by Karenna Umscheid
Like Ocean’s Eleven for the doomed generation, How To Blow Up A Pipeline is a thrilling heist film hinging on the urgency of the crime. The film is exactly what the title claims it to be – an environmental narrative of a group of young people blowing up a pipeline.
Directed by Daniel Goldman and adapted from Andres Malman’s book of the same name, the film chronicles various young people across the country encountering the disastrous effects of climate change, including oil companies seizing land, deadly heat waves, and pollution-induced disease. Differing from Hollywood standard heist films, the primary reason the one in How To Blow Up a Pipeline plays out is because of necessity and livability. The film wonders questions like: what options do we have left? Is this the only way we can truly have control over the livability of our futures?
The film is fast and thrilling, and though its compact runtime leaves some to be desired in terms of character development, it makes up for it in the intensity of the narrative. Moreover, the film feels rare in how explicitly it demands action; the heist depicted isn’t that of fantasy or fiction, it stems from urgency for radical change in the face of climate change. Few modern films encourage audiences to take action in the same way How To Blow Up A Pipeline does, culminating in a unique theatrical experience; the film is simply a must-see.
When I first watched it at the Boston Underground Film Festival last year, the entirety of the Brattle Theater was enthralled in the heist; with intense, droning silence and gasps of shock at every turn, you might have thought we were watching a horror movie. The applause was resounding and the end of the film is not terrifying or doomsday-esque, like so many disaster films masquerading as forewarnings of climate change. How To Blow Up A Pipeline is inspiring more than anything, angering and heartbreaking and thrilling but most of all hopeful; action could not be any more dire or necessary, but with it, a future is possible. How To Blow Up A Pipeline’s power lies in how realistic it is, the narrative plays out in fiction likely how it would in real life, but even with the group’s shortcomings, the precedent they set is powerful and inspiring. How To Blow Up A Pipeline envisions a livable future, but it is one that we must create for ourselves. It tells us not to despair any longer, for we already have the tools to do something.
For more on the film, please read my review of it for Boston Hassle!
How To Blow Up A Pipeline screens at the Brattle Theater on Monday, January 29 at 9:00 pm.
Until next week,
Karenna
Photograph: IMDb