The Human Element

Beautifully well done! Jim does a remarkable job conveying how fragile the planet actually is and how what we're doing has devastating effects on people everywhere. He also shows the importance of respecting all people you disagree with if you truly want to address the issue. If someone ever asks you about the impacts of climate change, look no further than this movie. Even better than Chasing Ice and Chasing Coral!

The Human Element, shows several natural disasters caused by the natural elements (earth, wind, fire, water) and the people (the quintessential element) they affect by using well posed photographs, films, and music that almost seems to belong more in a BBC nature documentary. This alone gives this film an unsettling distant feel that you know you are watching something terrible yet it is done so well you instead see the beauty in the ashes. There are a few environmental and personal commentaries tucked in the film but it is smoothly presented as to flow within the images. I should feel more empathy for the victims but the imagery is so surreal and melancholy. It reminds me of the movies Samsara or the Qatsi trilogy.

I think that The Human Element was a beautifully penetrating movie. Meeting generational coal miners, firefighters, and constituents of an endangered fishing community was chilling to me because I have lived such a sheltered and privileged life. I have never worried about my air being too dirty to breathe, or my house flooding with seawater, or my family dying in an untamable fire. Seeing people live this unfathomable fate was a layered discomfort. But it was only a discomfort, not a horror, or which made me feel self absorbed and delusional. I should be booking a flight to California to fight fires, or helping to relocate people who have lost their homes to rising sea levels. I should be doing something to help, something meaningful and impactful. Right? But that makes me feel even more self absorbed, in a way. Like I'm operating under the control of some savior complex. Do I really want to help, or do I just want to flush my system of the guilt that comes with the feeling of doing nothing? Or worse, do I subconsciously just want to be recognized for helping, for people to look at me, or this hypothetical me I conjure in my head, and feel the guilt that real me is feeling right now? These thoughts swam in my head as I watched the film, hanging from my frontal lobe down over my optic nerve like gristle on a fairground turkey leg, blinding me with my own passivity. I don't know what's at the root of this desire to help, but it's ringing in my jaw like a toothache every time I turn on the news. But really, what does it matter why I want to help? As long as people are helping, who really cares what's going on in their head? I wish more people had toothaches.

Perhaps this fantastically shot movie with human stories will convey the urgency to act. I wonder whether it is getting enough distribution. I recommend everyone seeing it - at least once. I was worried at first that it might be another "scientist/hippy/Boulderite" lecture to the masses. But no - it's a genuine, engaging portrayal of humanity - and what humanity is doing to the other elements.