Anthropocene: A Review
by Ralph Lucas – Publisher
(October 3, 2018, Toronto, ON) It just might be the most important documentary ever made. Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, which opened in Toronto in late September and opens across Canada on Friday of this week, should be required viewing to validate your citizenship on Earth.
The background is straight forward. A group of experts have spent years trying to determine what is happening to our planet. Their conclusion is that the last epoch, a long period of subtle change since the end of the last Ice Age, has been replaced by a new period where the changes are driven by the world’s population and it seems like things are out of control.
This isn’t a scary movie. Neither is it preachy. It is an exceptional journey around the world to show countless examples of what we are doing to the only place we can call home. The images, inspired by the large scale work of renowned photographer 
Edward Burtynsky, are stunning as we see evidence that we are destroying almost everything we touch.
As mentioned, this movie does not beat you over the head. The sparse narration by Alicia Vikander underlines the images. If you are at all concerned that your family should enjoy an unbroken chain of tomorrows you will draw your own conclusions and begin, or continue to make those changes in your life that will help guarantee our future. I may have missed them, but there is nothing in the narration that suggests how we must behave if we want to survive. The message is delivered on the screen and it is loud and clear.
If you reject the concept of this new epoch, the images should at least alert you to the fact that what we are doing as a species is just not sustainable.
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch from filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky took 3 years, 2 months and 22 days at 43 locations in 20 countries on 6 continents, resulting in 202 hours and 57 minutes of material that took 10 months of editing to complete. It takes less than 90 minutes to watch. You owe it to your own future to find the time to see this important documentary.
Also see: Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky talk about the making of Anthropocene: The Human Epoch.
Ralph Lucas began reviewing movies while in radio in Montreal in the mid-1970s.
