The 11th Hour, produced by Warner Brothers and narrated by Leonardo Di Caprio is a terrifying documentary film which raises goose worms when we see the threat the human race''s faces about extinction.Written and directed by the sisters Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners, and narrated on- and off-camera by
Leonardo DiCaprio, who served as one of the producers, “The 11th Hour” attempts to stave off helplessness, and the nihilism that often follows it, mostly by appealing to our reason.
In one interview snippet after another, dozens of scientists, activists, gurus, policy types and even a magical-mushroom guy go through the arguments, present the data and criticize the anti-green faction, putting words to the images that are liberally interspersed between these talking heads like mortar. Every so often, Mr. DiCaprio pops up on screen to interrupt this show and tell, squinting into the camera and pushing the narrative to the next topic.
If your head isn’t lodged in the sand, much of what’s said in the movie will be agonizing and familiar. Gasping children, disappearing animals, gushing oil, billowing smoke, dying lakes, emptying forests, warming weather — the list of ills is numbingly familiar. In the movie’s eye-catching opener, the directors riffle through a veritable catalog of timely snapshots, some obvious (a smoggy skyline), others less so (a human fetus).
The visuals are horrifying yet true to the extent that such calamities have fallen on us and more are feared.
That can make it tough to watch, which the directors clearly know. They whip through the pictures and the interviews fast, at times a little too fast, and keep the information flowing as quickly as the visuals. This swift, steady pace means that you receive a lot of bad news from a lot of different sources.
The ecologist Brock Dolman explains, “When we started feeding off the fossil fuel cycle, we began living with a death-based cycle.” From there the topic nimbly jumps to climate change national security (courtesy the former director of the C.L.A. R. James Woolsey), Katrina, asthma and the stunning news from the oceanographer and author Sylvia Earle that “we’ve lost 90 percent of most of the big fish in the sea.”
Yes, it’s bad, but it’s not over yet. Many of those same sober talking heads also argue with equal passion that we can save ourselves, along with the sky above us and the earth below. The capacity for human beings to fight, to rise to the occasion, as Mr. Woolsey notes, invoking America’s rapid, albeit delayed jump into World War II, gives hope where none might seem possible.
It is our astonishing capacity for hope that distinguishes “The 11th Hour” and that speaks so powerfully, in part because it is this all-too-human quality that may finally force us to fight the good fight against the damage we have done and continue to do. As the saying goes, keep hope alive — and if you’re holding this review in your hands, don’t forget to recycle the paper.
The movie is a sum of the causes of the global warming problem being faced by all kinds of species, the problems, solutions and remedies. It is astonishing to watch the film yet very factual.
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