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Bookmark this pageCollapse (2009)
Director: Chris Smith
Movie review
From Time Out London
‘I don’t deal in conspiracy theory,’ growls Michael Ruppert, the former LA lawman, CIA whistleblower and investigative journalist at the centre of this documentary. ‘I deal in conspiracy fact.’ It’s been over a decade since Chris Smith’s ‘American Movie’ introduced audiences to backwoods film fanatic Mark Borchardt, but the director’s fondness for articulate, quixotic, self-mythologising obsessives clearly hasn’t waned. Ruppert’s bugbear is peak oil, the idea that the world’s fossil fuel resources are beginning to decline, and that with them goes all of human civilisation. The film is basically one long interview, filmed interrogation-style in a darkened basement as Ruppert chainsmokes and wisecracks his way through the nightmare scenario he envisions for our species: mass starvation, social breakdown, the energy apocalypse. Smith’s attitude towards his subject is appealingly ambiguous: is Ruppert a righteous prophet of doom or just a paranoid sociopath with a grudge against the US elite? We’re never quite sure – but that doesn’t prevent many of his direst warnings from ringing blood-chillingly true.Author: Tom Huddleston
Time Out London Issue 2093: 30 September – 6 October, 2010
User reviews of this film
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- NEIL said...
- Posted on Nov 16 2010 12:13 A lot of Truths here that we cannot deny
- Report as inappropriate
Cast & crew
Director: Chris Smith
Genre(s): Documentaries
Duration: 80 mins
UK Release: Oct 1 2010
US Release: Nov 6 2009
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