Planet in Focus Fest - “Save-the-environment films that look good, too”
The film closes out Toronto’s Planet in Focus festival this Sunday at 7PM.
globeandmail.com: Save-the-environment films that look good, too
If an environmental film festival still sounds like a dry, activist-heavy affair, be assured that PIF has cinematic delights for those who just appreciate world-class cinematography and storytelling.There’s no better example of this than the closing-night film, The Unforeseen (Sunday, 7 p.m., the Royal). Filmmaker Laura Dunn’s lyrical yet pointed documentary explores how development interests and community environmental activism have swirled for three decades around Austin, Tex. - state capital, the heart of hill country and a singular place “where cowboys and hippies get along.”
Executive-produced by Robert Redford (also interviewed in the film) and director Terrence Malick, who lives in Austin, The Unforeseen charts the roller-coaster career of charismatic real-estate developer Gary Bradley alongside the fate of Barton Springs, a beautiful local swimming hole and part of the vast Edwards Aquifer, which is under increasing threat. With as many twists and turns as Barton Creek, the film features an engaging cast of characters and gorgeous cinematography by Austin’s Lee Daniel (who has shot most of the films of Richard Linklater).
The Reeler doesn’t say much but does plug DP Lee Daniel’s work.
He saw this at the recent Hamptons Film Festival where producer Bill Warren made an appearance. (Bill spent much of his own childhood in the Hamptons.)
The Reeler Finds The Hamptons — Again
Sunday was too stunning a day to be in a theater, but there I was at The Ross School, the first educational facility I’ve visited boasting both an indoor koi pond and bathrooms attuned for maximum feng shui. The projection booth could have used its own spiritual guide; a projector lamp burned out about eight minutes into Laura Dunn’s beautiful if obvious The Unforeseen, reducing the experience to a momentarily dark, drawling meditation on unchecked development in the suburbs of Austin, Tx. It really wasn’t much more than that once the picture was revived, but with a shooter like Lee Daniel filming his beloved Texas as poetically as ever, it hardly seemed to matter. Its festival life winding up as we speak, The Unforeseen premieres on the Sundance Channel in 2008.[Jef: Ahem, we also have a theatrical release coming before then.]
Robert Redford - The Historic Souls of our Communities
This is an uncorrected excerpt, so it appears pretty overexposed. Redford’s interviews in the film are of course color corrected and look terrific. I’ll replace this one soon with an improved version.
Screening - Denver Film Festival
- Sunday, November 11, 6:30 PM Starz FilmCenter
- Monday, November 12, 9:00 PM Starz FilmCenter
Denver Film Festival
The Unforeseen
USA, 2007, 94 Minute Running Time
Genre/Subjects: Documentary, Political
Language: English
(Buy tickets)
Taking its title from a line in a Wendell Berry poem, The Unforeseen springboards from Berry’s description of the wilderness as “a sort of blessing, by the face of its unexpectedness.” When West Texas farm boy-turned-real estate tycoon Gary Bradley attempts to trade that blessing for profit from the suburban subdivision he’s planning, an environmental battle ensues among Austin residents, who step up to protect their pristine hill country from development – particularly Barton Springs, a fragile limestone aquifer that has served as a local swimming hole for generations. Sharing his own memories of the springs with director Laura Dunn, Robert Redford (who, along with Terrence Malick, serves as executive producer) articulates the film’s main point: that Austin is actually a microcosm of America itself, representing every community that aims to preserve its natural resources in the face of seemingly unstoppable growth. Dunn also talks, in one of the political icon’s last interviews, with late Texas governor Ann Richards about the related debate over private property rights that paved the path to power for Richards’ nemesis, George W. Bush.
Yet Dunn is no propagandist but a meticulous documentarian, and The Unforeseen doesn’t hesitate to tell both sides of the story. Rather than vilifying Bradley, Dunn traces both his dramatic rise from poverty to wealth and his poignant fall amid bad press and the failure of many of his get-rich-quick schemes.
Like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, The Unforeseen contemplates the implications of human behavior for the future of the planet. But unlike the sometimes didactic Gore, Dunn convinces via lyricism, incorporating poetic voice-over narration, mesmerizing motion graphics and aerial photography (in one instance comparing Austin’s sprawl to a cancerous tumor). While the hard evidence it presents yields a strong case for conservation, The Unforeseen makes its most lasting impression via its haunting visuals.
Denver Film Festival
The Unforeseen
USA, 2007, 94 Minute Running Time
Genre/Subjects: Documentary, Political
Language: English
(Buy tickets)
Taking its title from a line in a Wendell Berry poem, The Unforeseen springboards from Berry’s description of the wilderness as “a sort of blessing, by the face of its unexpectedness.” When West Texas farm boy-turned-real estate tycoon Gary Bradley attempts to trade that blessing for profit from the suburban subdivision he’s planning, an environmental battle ensues among Austin residents, who step up to protect their pristine hill country from development – particularly Barton Springs, a fragile limestone aquifer that has served as a local swimming hole for generations. Sharing his own memories of the springs with director Laura Dunn, Robert Redford (who, along with Terrence Malick, serves as executive producer) articulates the film’s main point: that Austin is actually a microcosm of America itself, representing every community that aims to preserve its natural resources in the face of seemingly unstoppable growth. Dunn also talks, in one of the political icon’s last interviews, with late Texas governor Ann Richards about the related debate over private property rights that paved the path to power for Richards’ nemesis, George W. Bush.
Yet Dunn is no propagandist but a meticulous documentarian, and The Unforeseen doesn’t hesitate to tell both sides of the story. Rather than vilifying Bradley, Dunn traces both his dramatic rise from poverty to wealth and his poignant fall amid bad press and the failure of many of his get-rich-quick schemes.
Like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, The Unforeseen contemplates the implications of human behavior for the future of the planet. But unlike the sometimes didactic Gore, Dunn convinces via lyricism, incorporating poetic voice-over narration, mesmerizing motion graphics and aerial photography (in one instance comparing Austin’s sprawl to a cancerous tumor). While the hard evidence it presents yields a strong case for conservation, The Unforeseen makes its most lasting impression via its haunting visuals.
“Film Up” Review
Another writeup by an Italian reviewer.
The Unforeseen
The unforeseen, unexpected. What we talk about progress industrial / environmental decline or that Gary Bradley could be elected as a symbol of the fall (in terms of quality of life) of Austin does not matter. The fact is that the new documentary film dell’affermatissima Laura Dunn (Green, Become the Sky) is both the story of a town renowned for the beauty of its landscapes become despite city of factories and an act of accusation towards the capitalist logic that destroy without ethical rules. Even if it is the capital of Texas, Austin until the 70s was best known for being one of the first American cities to be invaded by the hippie movement and its splendid waterways. From that time, witnessing the slow and unstoppable decline of the place.A collapse signed by a ex-fattore that exploiting the construction boom of the 70s’, consequent to the international oil shock was mitigated investment in the stock market, made a big estate speculation, and not only on their territories. A first step quickly emulated by other businessmen, and that led to a slow but unstoppable metamorphosis of the city. A fight against these people and what they represent sided and still ranks the locals, and with some success, although not essential, is beginning to arrive.
Alternating interviews with numerical and graphic explanations of the situation, and insisting on the nature of which was, and still survives albeit in small traces, Laura Dunn manufactures a splendid documentary bill both in terms of visual content. A real film that takes advantage of the “blessing” of Robert Redford that besides selected for its Sundance Festival appears on the screen to tell her on the issue (it is a well-known environmentalist). Attractions.
The sentence: “Why such a place should be handled by people outside and only for economic purposes.
Andrea D’Addio
More from Italy - “highlighted in this view of gender films…”
Italy’s “Voce” has this brief writeup, again via Google Translate.
Redford, Mallick and their commitment environmentalist Presented the documentary The Unforeseen
Presented yesterday Oct. 19 Extra section, The Unforeseen Laura Dunn. A confirmation of the fact that Extra or, as in the previous edition, the most interesting of the International Festival of Rome.The film presents itself as a documentary narrative that focuses on environmental protest to Austin Texas, and is not proposing a tone of complaint or inquiry, but hides behind an appearance of simple documentation and then leave them leaked slowly on the surface.
The Unforeseen is the umpteenth film about ecological problems / environmentalists and on the conflict between nature and progress, but manages to get highlighted in this view of gender films thanks to some suggestive images it offers, and especially thanks to those excerpts of present in visual poetry. . In addition, it raises the wake of documentaries such as “It Truth” Al Gore and “The 11th Hour” with Leonardo Di Caprio, because although the latter dash of global warming and the film of Dunn has instead argument for the destruction of environment Texas by the government, such works are characterized by a significant civil commitment does not stop at words and trying to move public opinion with the production of international films.
The executive producers of The Unforeseen are Terrence Mallick and Robert Redford. We will see both the Feast of Rome in the coming days: the first for a unique and unrepeatable meeting with the public and the press, the second with his film “Lions for Agnelli.”
Anthony Spera
Close Up Italy - “It is Above All the Story of Human Weaknesses”
This review takes a totally different tact than most. Google’s translation seems better here, though it has its moments (”bringing out the human side of the executioner.”) Wish I read Italian.
The world is succumbing, overwhelmed by avarice, vanity and honors. Defeated by an army of houses in rows with swimming pool, shopping malls, four-lane highways, corrupt politicians, bad governance and natural disasters. The pollution has become a problem that can no longer be postponed. The cinema if they have noticed an increase in documentaries and who worry about bringing to our attention disasters and environmental abuses building.
Prior to being an environmentalist documentary The Unforeseen, presenetato many festivals including the latest edition of Sundance, it is above all the story of human weaknesses. Not only is the story of the life of a Texas manufacturer, speculation building in the USA, the American lobby, but especially that of a man who has promised himself to return in the small town in which it is born of winning and is willing to do this to sacrifice and destroy everything that comes along its path: short summary of the American dream.
During the seventies in Texas, a young entrepreneur plans to build a residential area in Austin, in one of the greenest cities in the country. All row until smooth liberalization of the rules binding credit institutions and regulate interest rates, forcing the contractor to ask for help from a multinational company in exchange for political support for the construction of another residential area. The construction of the latter would lead to pollution of aquifers one of the most important state and the city occurs.
The environmental disaster is inevitable, is the timing and progress demands, is the crazy world that forgets what are the primary need and reverses the whole order of priority. Documentary masterful beauty, The Unforeseen mixes styles and languages passing by ICMP to video art, showing the nature throughout the complexity and wonder. The film interjects interviews, and material shot repertoire. . The counterpoint undoubtedly pleasant and well built, the work is clearly distinguishable from standard television classic that rages in much of contemporary documentary. The film is undoubtedly a work by authors and staff and beyond any legitimate aesthetic judgment, a courageous and determined. The director Laura Dunn seems to be uncertainty and build the narrative according to a precise and consistent. Respondents play the role of real people and are placed within the story using materials of their day, the graphics and use of a coherent and sapientw fitting alternate. Without denying the value of testimony that the film takes on itself as a warning to posterity, unforssen The surprise of the human side.
Not so now abused theme of the fight between man and nature, between progress and tradition, but the capacity that the director has to bring out the human side of the executioner. The story, though they are not obvious environmental matrix takes net positions, but remains detached giving the viewer the opportunity to listen and try to understand. The emotion of the final “protagonist”, totally insensitive to the damage caused by his momentous project, confesses that the most terrible thing for him, even more so for fraud in the process that has involved and the damage they caused, was having his mother confess to bankruptcy, invites all of us to reflect on the fragility of the reasons that guide our decisions and the fragility and power of the whole human race.
Ciak… Si Cinema! - “Again, as Bush is close, with much lighter hand, the pathetic.”
Ciak… Si Cinema! seems to like the movie… but not as much as I’m liking Google’s translation! Those who have seen the film will doubtlessly agree that “The Unforeseen unleashes a new deadly blow to the United States.” That one may need to make the movie poster!
After Bush by Michael Moore, The Unforeseen unleashes a new deadly blow to the United States revealing another face of the American dream.
Produced by Terrence Malick and Robert Radford at the heart of the issue this time is building.
Building, expanding to spread fast and without policy destroys the natural world, polluter seriously threatening life in the not too distant future. The trend is conceptually quite good linear managing the dichotomy nature / progress (so dear to Malick), inner spirituality / god money. However, the film manages to cope well in maintaining a high level of attention and indignation of the viewer through flashbacks, images repertoire of challenges, direct interviews with concerned citizens for and against the new buildings, builders, lobbyists, lawyers.
The scenario is Austin, Texas, but a well-thought could be anywhere. The objective is once again a side of the world where American not many Americans are proud of: the value of any sacrifice in the name of profit.
The water source is the great protagonist: pure and limpid shown to Titan 90s, opaque and dirty in 2004. It is called an oncologist to explain what happens when a tumor develops. As we all know cells reproduce so without excessive longer a rule. In the memorable phrase of this development is shown irregular superimposed a map of project construction.
Again, as Bush is close, with much lighter hand, the pathetic. Children in their innocence are called to represent the victims, sentenced to serve all the destruction that our irrationally proceeding leave their legacy. Overall, a good documentary complaint that has as most important item in person Robert Radford, whose pain clearly seen for the irreparable damage caused to one of the most beloved of his childhood.
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About The Unforeseen
The Unforeseen, executive produced by Terrence Malick and Robert Redford, premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Called "the best film at the festival, hands down" by Film Comment's Gavin Smith, the film documents the struggles between development and preservation of Austin Texas.