Posted by Pinky.

This documentary film talks about the controversy surrounding whether or not to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska. Until you see this documentary, you might think the area is a barren arctic desert with ‘nothing’ in it. On the contrary, the ANWR is not only visually beautiful but also ecologically diverse and crucial to the survival of a mind-boggling range of animals. The film outlines the impact of drilling in the arctic and tries to place this in context vis-à-vis energy consumption, global warming, and the national and global economy. Another part we liked was that this film tries to show the long-term effects of oil drilling on the lives of contemporary Native people up in Alaska - that was really good.

Bunny and I had mixed feelings about this documentary. On one hand it discusses something that is extremely important and it showed us many things that we would have otherwise never seen. For this reason we were very happy that we saw it and will be recommending it to everyone. On the other hand we wished it did a better job at connecting the dots to the economic, political, cultural forces that drive our (inter)national addiction to oil. Maybe the producers were just trying to keep the film at 1 hour and had to leave some things out. This film would be excellent when shown as part of a sequence of related documentary films (An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car?, etc.).

~p.

[ pinky: B+ / Bunny: B- ]