THE REAL PRICE OF OIL
CRUDE
Sometimes it's easy to forget just what a dirty, messy, polluting process it is to get crude oil out of the ground so we can turn it into fuel. That's because most of the pollution takes place "somewhere else" -- in another country, in an- other part of the world.
The indigenous people of the Ecuadorian Amazon don't have that luxury. As we see in "CRUDE", a documentary from award-winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger, the rainfor- est where they live has been pol- luted across an area the size of Rhode Island in an effort to extract black gold. It's an environmental disaster referred to in the film as being thirty times more devastat- ing than the Exxon Valdez spill.
"CRUDE" is the story of the $27 bil- lion-dollar, multi-year environmen- tal lawsuit brought against Texaco -- now owned by Chevron -- on
behalf of 30,000 rainforest dwellers. Berlinger shows both sides of the story, which is by turns sad, outra- geous and inspiring, but never preachy. The filmmaker leaves conclusions up to you.
(That said, OMG, it's so obvious that Chevron-Texaco needs to admit responsibility, and fix this mess. I mean, come on, failing to clean up ponds of sludge? Just covering them with dirt and letting people build homes on top of them? Fouling drinking water sources that now shimmer with the rainbow slick of oil? And respond- ing to a twenty-day old baby, cov- ered with sores from bathing in that polluted water, by blaming it all on "poor sanitation" -- lame.)
In many ways, "CRUDE" is a classic David and Goliath story. We meet lead attorney Pablo Fajardo, the young Ecuadorean trial lawyer
who put himself through law school -- this is his first case. Ever. You can't help rooting for this hero who has sacrificed so much to help his country.
By comparison, the Chevron exec- utives seem like cold, corrupted corporate shills, particularly when juxtaposed with footage of a brave but helpless mother of a teenage girl dying of cancer. There is also an impressive appear- ance by Sting's wife, Trudie Styler, who has been instrumental in help- ing get clean water to the people of the region.
"CRUDE" is about of human rights, environmental stewardship, and the question of international cor- porate responsibility. It's also a well- constructed story that Sundance (and seemingly every other festi- vals) deemed worthy of seeing.
ADistinctive style 65
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