The Age of Stupid is an unashamedly polemic film. If you are looking for a documentary that disinterestedly unpicks the various scientific, social, economic and political debates surrounding climate change then you face disappointment. What the film does provide the audience is an ambitious venture into back casting. The film does not peer into the future but rather paints a bleak picture of a planet devastated by climate change by 2055 and then looks back through the eyes of the archivist (Pete Postlethwaite) in an effort to understand how our species had driven itself to near extinction.
The film uses a narrative device similar to Soderbergh's Traffic. Half a dozen separate stories draw out related themes of consumption, resource depletion and war and environmental degradation. The technique provides an engaging human perspective on both the causes and impacts of anthropogenic climate change. These stories are interspersed with several beautifully crafted animations that drive home the films central point, that ever expanding economic growth on a planet of finite resources is unsustainable.
Taken as a whole The Age of Stupid is a thought provoking and compelling look at what could happen without a sustained effort by governments and people in developed countries to challenge our current strategies for energy capture. While there are times when the film perhaps loses focus on its central message this would seem to be a consequence of its makers desire to convey such a weight and range of ideas and information. Possibly controversial and certainly ambitious but well worth watching.
The film uses a narrative device similar to Soderbergh's Traffic. Half a dozen separate stories draw out related themes of consumption, resource depletion and war and environmental degradation. The technique provides an engaging human perspective on both the causes and impacts of anthropogenic climate change. These stories are interspersed with several beautifully crafted animations that drive home the films central point, that ever expanding economic growth on a planet of finite resources is unsustainable.
Taken as a whole The Age of Stupid is a thought provoking and compelling look at what could happen without a sustained effort by governments and people in developed countries to challenge our current strategies for energy capture. While there are times when the film perhaps loses focus on its central message this would seem to be a consequence of its makers desire to convey such a weight and range of ideas and information. Possibly controversial and certainly ambitious but well worth watching.