Film succeeds in pure simplicity

It is a rare feeling to be surprised by films these days. In the age of the Internet, instant information-sharing is taking over the world — not that there’s anything wrong with that. But still, I’d venture that about 95 percent of the time, if not more, I more or less know how I’m going to feel about a movie before I even step foot inside the theater. The film itself generally only confirms my previously held beliefs.

The remaining 5 percent, however, is why I watch movies.

Beautiful Islands by Japanese filmmaker Tomoko Kana is part of that 5 percent.

Going in, my expectations of the film — a documentary about global warming — were not high. Like many others, I am worn out by the seemingly endless parade of An Inconvenient Truth imitators who trot out the same tired rhetoric time after time after time, pounding the same dry facts into my skull, turning my brain to mush, rendering me more or less apathetic about the whole thing.

Beautiful Islands is different. It knows how to shut up, get out of the way and allow the beauty of nature unfold before the screen — and make an argument on its own behalf that’s more compelling than any windblown, second rate, left-wing university professor/environmentalist/whatever could ever hope to make.

Yes, Beautiful Islands is indeed beautiful. For 106 minutes it captures the reality of three disparate locales: Tuvalu in the South Pacific, Venice in Italy and Shishmaref in Alaska. Each place is threatened by the effects of climate change, either by rising tides or receding ice floes.

But the story is told silently. There is no soundtrack, no narration, little talking in general and certainly no music. The only things we hear are the islands themselves. The wind rustling gently through the palm trees of Tuvalu. Water lapping against the bricks of the Piazza San Marco. Ice floes collapsing in Shishmaref.

The only words we ever hear are spoken by the islanders themselves, and regardless of where they reside — on a poor island nation or in a highly cultured western city — they repeat the same mantra: “Surely,  God would not allow our way of life to be destroyed.”

But not everyone feels the same about the simplicity of the documentary.

Read most any negative review (and there are, unfortunately, more than a few), and they almost universally criticize Beautiful Islands for being what it’s not: liberal propaganda.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I fail to see how a film with no soundtrack, that tells its story exclusively from the perspective of an impartial observer could possibly be considered propaganda. No doubt the attitude of the director can be inferred from the subject matter, but still.

The explicitly stated purpose of Beautiful Islands is to capture the beauty of nature before it is lost forever. How is this propaganda?

I blame environmentalists. So if you stand in the middle of the political road (like I do), and despise propaganda on either side, and one of your environmentally inclined friends drags you to this film, I recommend that you keep him (or her) locked in the trunk of your car so that you can enjoy the film in peace.

There. I’m done. Rant over.

To put it simply, go see this film. Relax and enjoy the scenery as Tomoko Kana takes you on a beautiful journey around the world. It is a rare blessing to be treated to raw footage as beautiful as this. This is real life, and that is something rarely seen in movies. Beautiful Islands takes you from a tribal ceremony in the South Pacific, to a masquerade ball in Italy, to a seal hunt in Alaska.

How many films can do that?  How many films can capture that subtle thread of unity that runs through humanity, regardless of race, class or tradition? The answer is, not many. So don’t allow your preconceived notions to color your opinion of this film. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you do, for the beauty stands on its own.

Sam Colen is a junior majoring in economics/mathematics. His column, “O’ Lucky Critic,” runs Fridays.