I don’t know about others but for me, some of the environmental documentaries lose a bit of air when they go about telling that we are all going to die because of this and that. They especially lose a lot of air if they just go on ranting about facts and figures because whatever message they have, gets lost in midst of those. Where’s the cinematic experience guys?
But seems like Josh Fox heard me even before I uttered those words. His latest documentary, Gasland takes us on a journey of discovering how drilling for oil and gas by ‘fracking’ – hydraulic fracturing, as it is technically known (and being used for more than 60 years!) is damaging not only mother Earth but disturbing quite a few lives. And the best part, apart from Fox’s humor to keep the audiences’ attention is the action sequence – can you do this with your tap water, which immediately had my attention.
When filmmaker Josh Fox receives a letter asking him to lease a chunk of his land for drilling, rather than blindly signing on the dotted line for big bucks, he decides to delve deeper into the possible side effects before reaching a decision. What happens next – is – the documentary – which is said to be a cross country odyssey of digging deep and uncovering the trail of lies, secrets and contamination.
It seems that the documentary’s message is not lost as it won the Documentary Special Jury Prize at Sundance and has been long-listed by the Academy.