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Oct. 5, 2007
Chain has weak links
Film proves uninspired in every possible way.
BAILA LAZARUS
Green is certainly the new black these days, and the Vancouver
International Film Festival is reflecting that in their new Climate
for Change series, which offers a $25,000 award for the best environmental
film.
Up for this year's award is Mark Leiren-Young's The Green Chain,
a mockumentary of seven monologues that give different perspectives
in the logging industry. However, the Climate for Change Award is
looking for "fresh information, vision and cinematic artistry"
that "enable [viewers] to see beyond facts, figures, charts
and headlines." Based on these criteria, I don't think we'll
see Green Chain picking up any accolades soon.
As the film begins, a logger (Scott McNeil) gets down off a rig,
looks at the camera and says, "I love trees." He pauses
for a pregnant moment, then launches into a monologue that covers
all his thoughts and emotions on trees, logging, environmentalists,
life, the universe and everything.
This format is repeated through the film, with an environmentalist
speaking from jail (Babz Chula), a firefighter walking amid a charred
forest (Tahmoh Penikett), a tree-hugger from his perch on a platform
up in a tree (Brendan Fletcher), a Hollywood actress brought up
for a photo-op with some trees (Tricia Helfer), a waitress in her
diner (Jillian Fargey) and a native CEO of a logging company (August
Schellenberg).
They each start with the scripted "I love trees," and
continue to speak in monologue format to the camera, sometimes looking
off to the distance, pausing, as if collecting a thought, and then
returning to their spiel.
To sum up the gist of the speeches, they are clichéd, totally
inauthentic feeling, uninspired and unenlightening.
In his rant about tree-huggers, for example, the logger refers to
"A**hole protesters" who never worked a day in their life
and drive up to the logging areas in SUVs their dad bought. "What
do these guys think their signs are all made from?" He asks
rhetorically. "Imagine how many trees get destroyed by a protester
forgetting a campfire." Wow, nobody ever heard that
before. Yawn.
Or the retired science teacher, arrested during the protest: "If
I go to jail, maybe my granddaughter won't have to lie down in front
of a bulldozer." Maybe. Or maybe we'll just be hearing people
say the same things like this in films for eons to come.
The flat "nothing-new-to-see-here-folks" content of the
speeches is only the least of the film's problems. Some of the portrayals
of the characters and lines they are given are so bad, they are
laughable. And it's really hard to tell if Leiren-Young is trying
to portray them with any sort of empathy at all, or if he just wants
to make a fool out of them. And if he is poking fun at some, why
not all? The actress and tree-hugger are given ridiculous one-liners,
but not the other characters.
The actress, for example, is portrayed as a complete idiot. While
there may be some who actually fit this bill, is Leiren-Young saying
all such Hollywood types are the same? Ironically, it actually
takes a huge talent to portray a bad actress very well, and Helfer
just doesn't have what it takes. She comes across as a bad actress
trying to portray a stupid one.
Then there's the firefighter. Since all the other contributors are
politicized in their speech, sitting on one side or the other of
the logging issue, the firefighter seems totally out of place. His
complaint? That he doesn't have enough work and, in the "off
season," he has to serve ice cream at the local Dairy Queen.
No, seriously. What's he doing in this film? As if that's not bad
enough, Leiren-Young has him walking around this burnt forest area,
poking at a charred log here, a smoldering pile there, then pausing
thoughtfully, looking off into the sun before turning back to the
camera. One half expects him to plant a leg up on a tree stump,
grab his crotch and spit, before going on with his speech.
Having actors portray individuals in a topic that usually is covered
in documentaries is a very risky endeavor. The actors and direction,
even in mockumentaries, have to be so exact for the depiction of
the main characters, there can be no thought or feeling that this
has been scripted. Unfortunately, this is not the case with Green
Chain. If this were its only fault, I suppose the film could
be let off with three stars out of five. But the writing is so uninspired,
it shed absolutely no light or ideas on the topic. For that, it
barely rates a two.
The Green Chain plays at Monday, Oct. 8, 7 p.m., and Wednesday,
Oct. 10, 12:30 p.m., at the Granville 7. For more information, visit
www.viff.org.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, photographer and
illustrator living in Vancouver. Her work can be seen at www.orchiddesigns.net.
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