MOVIE REVIEW
Crude (2009)
David Gilbert/First Run Features
Environmentally-themed documentaries have been all the rage since Davis Guggenheim offered the
previously unfathomable revelation that Al Gore giving a PowerPoint lecture could
be made dramatic. In fact, multifaceted movies about our brewing natural
crises — once the forte of activists and special-interest filmmakers — have
become such a norm, that there’s a definite threat of oversaturation. This year
alone has produced “Earth Days,” “No Impact Man” and “At the Edge of the World,”
among others.
Yet director Joe Berlinger keeps “Crude” — his crack at eco-themed issue oriented filmmaking — from seeming passé. That’s because he’s chosen a voluble, compelling subject: the ongoing law suit filed by Ecuadorean natives against oil giant Texaco (now Chevron), alleging years of unmitigated pollution of their waters and lands. Embedded in the story — which alternates between scenes of lawyerly machinations, the compiling of sad stories of the victims and a look at the media’s representations of the case — are enough intriguing characters and moments of high human drama for it to function more like a piece of effective fiction than a work of overwrought agitprop.
Continue reading “Chevron Drinks the Amazon’s Milkshake; Chevron Drinks It Up” »