LA Times also has a feature on Redford / The Unforeseen
In addition to the recent review, a separate feature highlights Redford’s pioneering environmental work.
BEFORE Hollywood went green, there was Robert Redford.
Before Arianna Huffington could have imagined a Prius, before Laurie David recycled, when the words “Al Gore“and “Oscar” in the same sentence would have seemed . . . well, outlandish, there was Redford, who made a cause of the natural world back when environmentalism was still called “ecology,” decades before “green” was anything but a color.
Now, as an executive producer of a new film, “The Unforeseen,” the leading man turned director turned Sundance Film Festival impresario has combined his longtime environmental advocacy with an ongoing passion: documentary cinema.
The full text is here.
LA Times reviews The Unforeseen
The LA Times’ senior film critic Kenneth Turan reviewed the film and he liked it.
“The Unforeseen” has the title of a science fiction thriller, not a thoughtful documentary on the environment, but there’s truth in that packaging. As directed by Laura Dunn, this unusual film unfolds like a mournful whodunit, with the Earth itself being the victim of the crime.
Taking its title from the poem “Santa Clara Valley,” read in voice-over by the poet Wendell Berry in his best angry, Old Testament prophet style, “The Unforeseen” skirts the danger of being simply a tree-hugger movie, of reflexively coming out for clean air and water the way conservatives used to come out for motherhood, the flag and apple pie.
Instead this film, which took the Truer Than Fiction prize at Film Independent’s recent Spirit Awards, honors the intricacies of a complex subject. It depicts the battle between the competing interests of developers and environmentalists as it played out over a 30-year period in the area around Austin, Texas, and turns it into a convincing microcosm for land use issues everywhere.
The full review is available here.
Los Angeles, San Fran and Berkeley open Tomorrow
So we open in 3 California theaters tomorrow. If you’re in any of these cities and want to see the film, you can catch them at:
- Nuart Theatre, Los Angeles, CA 3/14/08
- Lumiere, San Francisco, CA 3/14/08
- Shattuck, Berkeley,CA 3/14/08
Next stop… Austin.
San Francisco Bay Guardian Review
So this is nice…
Archival news broadcasts and primary documents sparkle anew in the sweep of Dunn’s assured storytelling. And while the stunning imagery and bookending Wendell Berry poem appreciably add to the film’s texture, it’s ultimately the first-time director’s clear interest in personalities that makes The Unforeseen the most winning environmental documentary in years. Her preservationist position is unmistakable, but instead of casting developers like Gary Bradley as villains, she explores their motivations and rationales — and in doing so brushes up against the twisty nature of the American Dream.
Here’s the full text of the review. (scroll down)
The Plan
Originally I thought about writing a response to the recent NY Times ding. If you missed it, it’s here. In particular, the recurring idea that the film fails to provide “The Plan.” The Plan to save humanity from, among other things “the polar ice caps melting.” But in counterpointing I realized I’d already written a comment to the same effect about the negative reaction the film garnered from some San Francisco Film Festival attendees (this post.) This movie doesn’t provide the Plan. In fact, for those with eyes to see, it is a rolling critique of Plans. Everything from
- Wendell Berry’s poem which opens, threads and closes the film is an entire critique of “a world made entirely according to plan“
- Prologue’s opening title sequence of a blueprint expanding into a shattered stained-glass aerial which eventually seems to grow into a sickened, decaying organism
- To the closing sequences which return the viewers again to the ruins of a man’s ambitions which are shown in a montage of abandoned plans/development maps
It seems to me that there are more than enough environmental documentaries that proffer variations of a plan. In fact, this trailer seems to suggest You are in fact the hero who will save The Planet. But suppose humanity devices a Plan to save itself from any and all environmental threats. Who is going to save Humanity from Humanity? To bend Jacques Ellul, suicide is at the heart of the system. Like the grizzled old sickle-wielding blandishment says “There’s no way out of it…”
The film takes a leap of faithlessness in man and by extension, our plans. And in doing so, it aspires to do what the Boston Globe’s Ty Burr declares it cannot. Namely, play to the so-called “unconverted.” Those unconverted dispute most of the environmentalist movement’s premises and discard their data. The data can and will be debated until Kingdom come. In my opinion, those who like the film and those who don’t reveal very different views of man.
But hey, it’s cool. It’s a privilege to have a movie in theaters and to have done very well with most critics. But for these few negative reviews, we’d have no way to see things like reader reviews that disagree and make their own case for why they liked the movie. In the case of the NY Times, 4 of 5 reader reviews so far disputed the review and pointed out how flippant and beneath the paper the tone was. Though a small sample point, it seems like it’s hopeful for the film’s overall reception. More respond than don’t, more advocate than denigrate, etc.
Okay, I digress. We now return you to the failing financial system…
Sponsored by the American Dream and subsidized by a credit-fueled speculative bubble of building and buying.
“The Unforeseen” opens in Boston’s Kendall Square
Landmark’s Kendall Square is now showing The Unforeseen. To buy tickets and check showtimes, click here.
Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir reviews the film
Andrew O’Hehir of Beyond the Multiplex fame recent wrote a full review of the film.
One of the most extraordinary accomplishments in recent American nonfiction filmmaking. It hits hard as to facts, and opens its eyes to inexpressible mysteries. It strikes a clear moral and philosophical stance, and then — as part of that philosophical stance, actually — reveals its villain as a tragic and sympathetic figure.
Nice to have something like this to counter the recent surprisingly glib NY Times writeup… (More on that soon)
Read the rest of Salon’s review here.
TV Guide gives film 4 of 4 Stars
A number of new reviews for you… starting with:
The title makes Laura Dunn’s documentary about suburban sprawl sound like a horror movie, and in a very real way it is: Dunn’s elegant, full-length debut presents a frightening and powerful argument against the kind of reckless, profit-driven land development that not only threatens natural resources, but life itself.
Click here for the full review.
Entertainment Weekly reviews the film
They gave it a B in a very brief review that, like a surprising many other number of sites, manages to spell “The Unforeseen” as “The Unforseeen.”
Add The Unforeseen to the catalog of artfully produced nonfiction films that show how humans are screwing up the planet.
Slant Magazine gives 3.5 of our 4 Stars
Another nice review:
Like the central angelic figures in Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire, The Unforeseen evokes the point of view of a divine being observing our species’ modern history—only here they’re mourning what they’ve borne witness to.
Full article here.