SYNOPSICS
Force of Nature (2010) is a English,Japanese movie. Sturla Gunnarsson has directed this movie. Tara Cullis,Severn Cullis-Suzuki,Ann-Marie MacDonald,Miles Richardson are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2010. Force of Nature (2010) is considered one of the best Documentary movie in India and around the world.
Approaching age 75, scientist Dr. David Suzuki, seen by many as the leading environmentalist in Canada, is giving a lecture in Vancouver. As he stands behind the lectern, he tells many reasons why he and we should care about the environment. With the human population growing exponentially and humans having increasingly longer life expectancies, we as a species are having a larger footprint on the environment. Much of what is man made in the world, such as the economy, democracy and the dependence on fossil fuels, are treated as unchangeable forces of nature, when in reality they can and should be viewed critically, especially in their long term consequences on life on the planet. He also tells of the interconnectedness we are as a species without most really realizing it, and that we should have a stronger connection to place and what that means. Away from the lecture stage, he tells of the profound effect the bombing on Pearl Harbor had on his life as a third generation Canadian of ...
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Force of Nature (2010) Reviews
a great doc recommended by myETVmedia
How do you take the life of an icon of Canadian science and culture, the sum of his knowledge and wisdom and summarize it in a 90 minute film? That's what Sturla Gunnarson ("Beowulf and Grendel", "Air India 182", "Such a long Journey"), my friend and great filmmaker has done in a highly personal, very touching and truly effective way. The idea of this movie came to producer Lazlo Barna, who wanted to make a film about Suzuki. He spoke about it to his Academy Award nominated filmmaker and friend Sturla Gunnarson. It took Sturla by surprise. He was reticent. So Lazlo introduced Sturla to David. Alea jacta est! The deal was sealed. The movie would be made with the collaboration of the NFB, CBC and E1. As the movie opens, the 75 year old David Suzuki, looking like a sprightly middle-aged man, delivers his legacy speech in front of a sold-out, enrapt Vancouver audience. We get to know how the man became one of the most beloved figures of our country's collective conscience ..
A look at the life and message of a great science communicator
This is a sort of bio-documentary, of the life of David Suzuki, well-known scientist, communicator, and environmentalist. If you don't know him, this film is an excellent way to learn about him, and the message he most wants to send you. It's a weaving together of Suzuki's last lecture and a biography of Suzuki's life (although it can sometimes be premature to declare any work by a living human a "last"...). In the lecture portions, Suzuki gives the message we avoid, that steady economic growth ultimately means hastening our death. I applaud him for stating so clearly what so many others have kind of lead us up to, but not stated in quite this way. Al Gore (An Inconvenient Truth), Michael Moore (Capitalism: A Love Story), and Mike Ruppert (Denial Stops Here, Collapse) have said this in other ways, but Suzuki makes it plain, firmly based in simple and unavoidable science. If our economic system is leading us to destruction, we must change it. We don't exist for the rules. They exist for us. So let's choose better ones that reflect our actual values of place, home, family, friendship, the core of our lives. Still, there are two drawbacks to the lectures (although that doesn't necessarily detract from the film, which places the lecture in context of a biography). First, the urgency never really comes through in an emotional way. The calm tone of the message undermines it, makes it not quite real. Second, Suzuki briefly speaks of the forces of nature (gravity, etc.) as love. While a romantic notion, I think love is something humans and other animals create, not something inherent in matter. So let's claim that one for ourselves. Equally interesting to the lecture, or maybe even more, is a biography of Suzuki, stopping off at significant points and places along his life's story. We learn about the horrifying effect of Canada's Japanese internment camps and racism during WWII, his experiences during the black civil rights era in Tennessee, and how Suzuki's scientific interests shaped and were shaped by his life experiences. Although I was familiar with Suzuki's work generally, I knew nothing of his background, and it is fascinating and revealing. The feeling I come away with is a sense of a person having done his best over a lifetime, exceedingly well, and yet having to make peace with a world that seems determined to mostly ignore his urgent advice during his lifetime. Perhaps because of that, Suzuki has shared his life story, which is a story of love and loss. I think it is perhaps this message that may be his most effective. It's hard not to come away feeling hugged goodbye, by a close friend you just met. My only issue with the film itself is the use of rapid zoom-ins and zoom-outs. Don't do that. It is otherwise excellent, among the best films of the year. Seek it out.
Poorly Directed Biopic for a TV Star
It is difficult for a reviewer to criticize an environmental effort, especially a high profile activist like David Suzuki. I will probably be flamed by his fans for this review, but since it IS a movie, I will review it the way I would for any other film. 'Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie' was shown at a special earthquake benefit screening at JCCC. As a Canadian citizen, I obviously have heard of David Suzuki, but I never really watched any of his shows because I had dismissed him as just another eco-nut on TV. Of course it's an unfair bias toward a person I don't even know, so I decided to take this opportunity to learn about this "Canadian Icon". The film had a very solid start with a long aerial view of Pacific Ocean and a glimpse of city of Vancouver, effectively symbolizing Earth being ruled for aeons by the Force of Nature, and the recent emergence of the Force of Mankind, as David Suzuki suggested in his Legacy Lecture. Then something happened... we're taken back to his childhood and the internment of Japanese Canadians in the era of WWII. I was expecting an environmental film like 'An Inconvenient Truth', but apparently it's a biopic. Even worse, what actually happened was the back and forth jump from his preach for environmental change to personal history. The implication of this is that the argument is too fragmented and superficial to be fully persuasive, and it's impossible to connect or empathize with David Suzuki because we keep getting interrupted by his Legacy Lecture. Having the most emotional scenes, or climax, in the first half of the movie certainly did not help. The second half of the movie was a very difficult watch. It simply did not have the ability to keep the viewer interested with the film having climaxed in the first half, and due to mediocre pacing. This is reflected by people checking their cell phone around me, and some of them even stood up and left in middle of the movie! I watched this movie in a Japanese culture center, in a benefit event, in Canada... I can't imagine a more favorable audience, but there it was. The constant zoom-ins were also extremely annoying. It was used to emphasize the impact of David Suzuki's words for about 30 times. Something a novice filmmaker rather than an Oscar-nominated director would do. This movie also calls David Suzuki's character into question. He preaches for all these environmental changes to save nature, but he does not seem to practice what he preaches. He is shown driving around is gas-guzzling cars and riding helicopter. Of course, these things had to be done for the production of a film, but such careless display sends a conflicted message. Another scene where he criticizes fishermen in the iconic Tsukiji Fish Market (I couldn't help but laugh in this scene, I'm sure none of the Japanese fisherman knew he was rebuking their hard work to make a living... right in their home turf!), then the following scene shows the first time he appreciated great nature when he caught (and killed) a fish in a lake when he was young. He even caught two fishes for the making of this film, and handed them over to Natives who sliced them up into pieces, tossing them around like fishermen in Tsukiji as David Suzuki watched them in approval. It's wrong to catch them for general consumption, but it's fine to catch them for private consumption? Funny thing is, the event programmer said in the beginning of the movie that all proceeds from sushi sold at the event would be donated to earthquake relief in Japan. I wonder what David Suzuki has to say about that? It seems even the people who had picked this film was not convinced of environmental impact of mass fishing. The most confusing scene was near the end, when he buried the picture of his father near a lake. I'm pretty sure that stuff is not bio-degradable. I also found it pathetic that he does not speak Japanese. So his parents are second-generation Japanese, and he's the third-generation. That does not excuse him from abandoning his heritage, especially when he preaches the value of culture and family. I don't see the Natives dancing to English lyrics in the movie even though they've been "Canadian" for far more generations than David Suzuki. Understandably, his family was not isolated like the Natives, but as a direct Japanese descent (and as a star who represents Japanese-Canadians), he has no excuse for speaking worse Japanese than the Caucasian event programmer at JCCC. There were other times when he just made no sense in the movie. "We are air"? "Particle attraction is love"? "Human beings are like maggots"? Such blabbering only diminishes his authenticity as a scientist and make him seem like the eco-nut that I thought he was. He was presented as a whining hypocrite and an idealist who made no effort to provide a viable solution to what he claims is an urgent situation. I have to admit though, he is an extremely charismatic speaker, and this documentary does show his passion toward his cause, however misguided it may be. The director Sturla Gunnarsson at the event commented that David Suzuki originally wanted to do an environmental film while he wanted to do a biography. I'm not surprised. 'Force of Nature' could've been either a powerful statement of the current state of Earth and call for action like Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth', or an inspirational biopic to David Suzuki's accomplishment through hardship of childhood. Unfortunately, it tried to do both, and ended up accomplishing nothing but shallow glorification of a TV star.