In 2012, filmmaker Celeste Geer released Then The Wind Changed, a documentary trailing a community’s journey to recovery after the Black Saturday bushfires of February 2009. It’s a period that’s become seared into our national consciousness, with many Australians remembering exactly where they were that fateful day.
Years later, academics are still working to understand what led to the horrific events that took 173 lives and more than 2000 homes — and while the answer is multifaceted, one thing is for certain: anthropogenic climate change played a role. With that in mind, it seems only natural that Geer’s next work would be centred around climate change more broadly.
In The Endangered Generation?, which premiered at MIFF to a nearly sold-out crowd, the warm and familiar voice of Laura Dern (Jurassic Park, Big Little Lies) guides you along an epic, cross-country journey. To show the scope of the world (and the problem), you’re treated to footage of awe-inspiring natural landscapes like lush Panamanian jungles, arctic ice shelves and large swaths of desert.
Along the way, you meet scientists, artists and First Nations leaders who, in their different but interconnected ways, have made it their life’s mission to tackle the climate crisis. But while the film is beautiful to watch, on the whole, it fails to dive beyond the surface level – with a majority of the interviewees spouting tired aphorisms about climate change being bad or needing to be addressed.
In saying that, Greer does highlight two particularly interesting people and projects: firstly, the Wunungu Awara project, which uses 3D animation technology to preserve and bring Indigenous lore to life, and secondly Agar Iklenia Tejeda, an indigenous Guna woman from Panama. Tejada has cemented herself as a leader of her community, earning herself a spot at COP26 where she proudly presents a Mola (hand-woven textile) made by 40 women in her community.
Unfortunately, for the majority of the film, Tejeda is tasked with guiding an evolutionary biologist who doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish through the jungles of Panama. After delivering long monologues that are clearly intended to elicit an emotional response, Tejeda’s companion offers nothing but a glazed-over look and a ‘si’. Each time, it’s met with a smattering of laughter from the audience, and it’s difficult to fathom why the filmmakers didn’t seek out a Spanish-speaking academic to accompany Tejeda.
There’s a story here, but it’s heavily diluted with extraneous information. And with a subject as time-dependent as climate change, we need our information as concentrated as possible.
