I’d say that 2023 has been the year in which, finally, there could be no more denying that global warming is real, except that there are still plenty of people denying it. I’m sure some of those people would look at the 2019 Canadian documentary Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, about all the many ways that our species has smashed its ugly bootprint on this planet, and say it’s no big deal. Though it’s tough to see how such cognitive dissonance could be possible. This is an astonishing film, sometimes oddly beautiful but mostly like sci-fi horror, an anti-meditation nightmare and a call to arms… if only we were ready to finally address our thoughtless impact on our only home. “Humans now change the Earth and its systems more than all natural processes combined,” narrator Alicia Vikander informs us. The visual evidence of that is downright dystopian, and yet all too real. (Read my 2020 review.)
US: stream on Kanopy; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: not available to stream, on demand, or on physical media, unfortunately
See Anthropocene: The Human Epoch at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
