A stretch of forest on the border of Lithuania and Russia stands naked and bare, the leaves of the trees have been seared off by the caustic shit that cascades down from the cormorants that call the forest home. These cormorants are stunning birds that were once regionally extinct within the forest, and after having made a resurgence in the area decades ago, their population has swelled to overwhelming levels. The UNESCO World Heritage Site is itself is suffering because of their presence, but because of their once threatened status, the cormorant is a protected species. In solitude, without the cormorants, the forest would protected forest would thrive, but, without the forest, the cormorants would likely have faded into the ever growing annals of extinct animal history.
This is the cruel irony at the centre of Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė’s documentary Acid Forest. The symbiotic relationship between the forest and the birds is one that harms each other. While the birds can call these trees home now, what will happen when the damage their refuse creates causes the entire forest to collapse? Where will they be able to roost and call home then? Will the cormorants then be once again threatened? And, if not, then what is humanities role in ensuring this protected stretch of forest remains viable?
Thanks to a tourist viewpoint in the middle of the forest, we’re presented with the ever opinionated dialogue of tourists visiting this forest, standing in the opening and espousing all manner of tips and directions to whoever will listen about what should be done to save the forest. For some, they dictate to their friend or partner about what they should do, for others, they are alone on the platform lamenting about the devastation caused by these birds. Whether these tourists are aware that their stream of consciousness is being recorded by hidden cameras and microphones, we never know.
What is clear is that there is a grand lack of self-awareness about the analogous relationship of the forest and the cormorants and humanity and the world we live in. The notion of oblivious birds destroying their home, no doubt dooming their future selves while they procreate into oblivion, is terrifyingly no different to the relationship that humanity has with the world. Tourists stand and judge, demanding that for the sake of the forest, these birds should be killed, all the while recognising that in the same breath these birds are protected. It’s almost as if, thanks to the viewing platform, this stretch of the world is a stage, and these tourists are the ever judging audience. No doubt if there were a bucket of rotten fruit and vegetables, they’d be throwing them with glee.
As Acid Forest closes, renegade activists take it upon themselves to ‘save’ the forest by setting off fireworks in the middle of the night, presumably to scare away the birds. After being privy to the tourists dialogue, we can’t help but ask, are these activists doing the right thing? After being presented with sixty minutes of this forest, we’re left to wonder, what deserves to be saved – the forest, or the birds? And, possibly the most pertinent question, should we – humans – step in to ensure one of them reigns victorious?
This is a question that’s rolling around the world, as fence-free zoos are essentially crafted in the wild to keep minute populations of threatened to endangered animals alive. In Australia, the question of whether the population of koalas on Kangaroo Island should be culled or not for the safety and sanctity of the island is one that has been raging on for years. A parliamentary inquiry peers over collated data and in the grandest realisation of man playing God, they sit in a taxpayer funded room and decide the fates of populations of koalas, or western grey kangaroos, or long-nosed fur seals, or little corellas. The word used is ‘overabundance’, but who deems what population of wild animals is correct? And, most importantly, what is the number that tips these populations from being a healthy group to being one that causes irreparable damage to the habitat? This grand irony runs rampant throughout the world, where on mainland Australia, the koala is an endangered species, and the wild population of kangaroos being wildly miscalculated (see the documentary Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story for more information), all the while, we’re happy to clear away precious habitat for endangered creatures just to put a pollution spilling mine in the ground.
If we’re so busy corralling regions in the wild for animals who call said ‘wild’ their home, utilising imaginary boundaries to dictate where these creatures can and cannot live, then at what point do those rules start to get applied to humanity itself? In Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky, and Nicholas de Pencier’s documentary Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, that question is raised through soul crushing imagery of a world in chaos. This is a visual record of humanity in a perpetual state of panic – with concrete seawalls in China being established over decades to ward off the ever increasing sea levels, or the increasingly disappearing heritage and towns in Germany, being consumed by a mammoth land devastating machine that terraforms its path through the endlessly obliviated farmland, all the way to the military secured functionally extinct white rhino, protected day and night by soldiers who attempt to ward off ever greedy poachers who yearn for the last slice of rhino ivory.
The definition of the word ‘Anthropocene’ is:
Anthropocene
/ˈanθrəpəˌsiːn/
adjective
relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.
"we've become a major force of nature in this new Anthropocene epoch"
noun
the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.
"some geologists argue that the Anthropocene began with the Industrial Revolution"
But, then you have the word ‘Anthropocentric’ – the term that cements the arrogance of mankind, where it suggests that we – the human race – are the central and most important element of existence, especially as opposed to animals and God. Religion plays a major role in the humility of mankind, with its presence playing as a way of reminding those who follow a faith to question what exactly humanity is doing to the world that God gave them. If the lesson of original sin is to remind humanity the weight of Adam and Eve’s rebellion, with their consumption of the forbidden fruit damning the world, and depending on which reading, gave humanity the inclination to sin, the will of ignorance, and the domination of death. What joy! But, surely, with the knowledge of what original sin is, and the desire to appease God and honour the sacrifice that Jesus made, then surely there would be a greater respect given to the world that God delivered us?
But no, the arrogance of mankind states that we hold dominion over all, and in turn, that means that everything that exists on this planet is for us, and us alone. Anthropocene: The Human Epoch paints a horrifying picture of the state of the world, portraying this planet we call Earth as a grand ouroboros that will eventually defeat itself in the battle of self-defeating purposes. In an awe inspiring manner, this film, when writ large on a cinema screen, is a glorious sight to behold. Fields of burning elephant tusks entice as dark smoke fills the sky and unsettling orange and red laps at the remnants of these elegant beasts, all the while a time lapse shot of the ever diminishing Great Barrier Reef is startling to look at, yet disturbingly mesmerising, and when these images are paired with mountains of rubbish and disturbed plastic, where both people and scavenging birds alike peruse the rubble like they’re shopping for milk and bread, we can’t help but take away the notion that the destruction of earth carries an eerie beauty to it.
And what kind of notion is that? What kind of disturbing realisation is that? I’m reminded of Samantha Morton’s Hazel in Synecdoche, New York, standing in her house of fifty years, an abode that has been continually on fire, and her complete ambivalence to the scenario she finds herself in. As we stand in the kitchen while our houses burn down, drinking a glass of water and peering at the disintegrating curtains, we can’t help but comment on how beautiful it looks. I’m unsettled that after the mournful and depressing imagery on display in Anthropocene, the one thought I have taken from it is, ‘yeah, it’s sad, but it sure is darn pretty looking’.
Which in itself is a question that can’t help but be asked at the end of the film – at what price beauty? Those 20,000 burning elephant tusks exist as a reminder that they came from 10,000 elephants. What would 10,000 elephants look like? Would 10,000 elephants, in one place, be treated the same as the koalas on Kangaroo Island, or the cormorants in Acid Forest? Would they, if left to flourish, would they be treated as scurge if their numbers were deemed to put them into the realm of ‘overabundance’?
For those who created businesses on the foundations of ivory, they have found a grand opportunity as the death of the world rolls on – mammoth tusks. As the great fields of ice in Russia start to melt and the sea levels rise, creatures from long ago, once captured in stillness, are emerging into the world as golden opportunities. The desire for ivory still exists, so why not monopolise the wealth of long dead mammoths and use them instead for the endless array of expensive art that will adorn the walls of the wealthy? The question that nobody is asking appears to be that of: what use are the bodies of the dead if they can’t be used for glory and beauty? Such is the selfishness of mankind that we can’t help but turn these ancient beasts into artistic figures that celebrate mankind itself. This is without even touching on the endless mine of pristine marble, dragged out of the earth just to create replications of the statue of David, itself a black hole of creativity, encouraging imitation rather than originality.
And yet, this failure to transition away from industries or jobs that directly harm the world we live in might be a good enough reason why we shouldn’t be in awe of the artistic ability of the ivory artists. The pride that workers take in the familial lineage of world destroying jobs that they occupy should be disturbing, but when there is no alternative of employment due to the remoteness of where they live, should we damn them from afar because of their fate? If the governments of the world can’t help but encourage mass destruction of the Earth under the guise that it’s for the ‘betterment’ of mankind, then why should we damn those who are forced to live under such ruling? The mines in Russia are like endless wormholes that end up nowhere, gathering valuable dirt just so they can power themselves. Even the ‘ecological’ and ‘green’ alternative that is supposed to help ferry us away from our climate change sealed fate is almost as caustic and harmful as what we were already producing.
But, like the cars that race across the ever thinning ice in the middle of nowhere, knowing that under their feet is the possibility of certain doom, we simply can’t help ourselves. In Aquarela, the chaotic destruction of earth is realised through the perspective of the bodies of water that litter this planet. These ever rising waters are hostile to humanity, creating one of the few realms on this planet that we cannot successfully conquer – although we are trying our best with the ceaseless stream of trash that we fill the oceans with, and the endless plundering of aquatic life from the seas that we fill our arthritic capsules with.
As the film opens, we witness the retrieval of a submerged car body. Archaic looking tools of sticks and ropes are twirled and twined together to drag the car to the surface. It’s clear that this is a common occurrence for Russia’s Lake Baikal. In another shot, we see one of these car carcass rescuers shouting at another car as it races across the ice flats that they’re going to sink as the ice is unstable. As if to himself, or to the camera, he states, ‘they can’t hear me’, and then moments later, the car disappears under the ice.
And in this short moment there has never been a better representation of the idiocy of humanity: a car taking a short cut across treacherous ice, knowing full well that they are likely to not make it across, only for some far off stranger to shout at them telling them that they are wrong. We push on, eager for our own gain, blind about our own destruction, earnest with our wilful ignorance.
It’s then genius that director Viktor Kossokovsky presents the imagery within Aquarela with the glorious backing of a rock opera score. It’s an overwhelming pairing of a cacophony of sound and a deluge of imagery that submerges you under the power of water. The icebergs crack like the world is being split in two, pushing boat tipping waves of debris through the waters. There is something that so purely draws from the well of anarchy about water, with its destructive qualities also being equally restorative.
As a stark contrast of the caustic imagery in Anthropocene, the various displays of water within Aquarela are calming, reassuring, and a welcome reminder that once humanity is gone from this earth, this unknowing energy will wash away almost everything we have done, allowing whatever comes after us to start this world anew. What kind of hope is that? Hope that one day we will cease to exist and our endless self-adoration will finally be gone, allowing some other entity to take our place?
In one shot, through hurricane devastated Miami, a boat passes an unlikely group of animals – dogs, pigs, maybe a goat – standing on an abandoned house porch. Their eyes watch and observe the destroyed land that they stand on. Their faces suggest that they are asking, why has this happened, when will it stop, when will these people be gone, and most importantly, will we ever be saved from this chaos that reigns around us?
All three of these documentaries work as a powerful rebuttal to the optimists around the world that suggest that there is still hope in humanity. While Damon Gameau’s positive, aspirational 2040shows that there is hope around the world, that change is occurring for the better of the world and humanity, it’s hard not to look at the evidence proposed in Acid Forest, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, and Aquarela, and wonder whether that hope is misplaced? While Damon has no choice but to rely on hope for the future his daughter will be living in, the optimistically pessimistic citizens of the world can sit here and scoff about how doomed we all are. There is little joy within these films – even if they have all have their own darkly comedic moments – but there is a realisation of just how destructive we are.
This trilogy of human conjured terror was never conceived to work in harmony – these are all separate projects that I have viewed in a short period of time together at Perth’s Revelation Film Festival – but when viewed together, you can’t help but see the grand portrait that they weave: we are the harbingers of our own destruction and extinction, and we are gleefully heading down this path with supreme gusto.
Acid Forest
Director: Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
Directors: Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky, Nicholas de Pencier
Aquarela
Director: Viktor Kossokovsky