I Absolutely loved the first 20 minutes which was graced with perhaps one of the most elegant openings of a documentary ever. This wordless ape prelude reprises to conclude and leave audiences with a rich analogy to consider -- very tight. It provokes the pertinent question "Why?" This important question is also echoed nicely in the expressions of common people shot around the world. What a "wonder"ful slice of humankind! Further, between talking heads, are even more robust, sweet, insightful, meaningful, and artistically captured visuals.

And yes, the film brings up some very poignant concerns. The very ugly, very real, very dire downsides of progress. But the rub is, in my opinion, the production as a whole gets just a little stuck in that hole. There are many upsides to progress which get glossed over. Don't get me wrong, a doc like this is necessary and important and I even concur with the urgent warning of it all. Yes! Our brand of progress is in many respects spinning out of control and unless we pull in the reins there will be some very unpleasant consequences.

It's important to bring to light third world debt, oligarchic governments and blinded-by-profits corporations, but progress does have its upsides which were rather glossed over in this production. Virtually eliminating small pox means that millions of people were able to stay alive and contribute to the moral growth of humanity (perhaps MLK or Jefferson or Helen Keller) were some of them. And yes, progress may mean we get knocked back into the stone age, but so what? Really, so what? What's so bad about starting over? It's already been conjectured that we might have destroyed civilization and rebuilt it several times to get to where we are now. This is the kind of philosophical discussion the first 20 minutes of the film promise. I wanted to see/hear some possible solutions, some positive solutions. What would they look like? The picture quotes Stephen Hawkings: "If we make it passed these next 200 years, humankind should be alright." Well, give me some practical ways we can do that. Simply asking banks, selfish-dictators, and corrupt democracy's to "behave themselves morally" is one possibility. Sadly, there aren't too many optimists in that camp. Show me some alternative futures where those with the same kind of passion for sustainability as the individuals interviewed here (Jane Goodall, David Suzuki, etc.) find a way to curb the greed factor in others through political and economic means.

-- Books by Ross Anthony, Author/Illustrator --