The planet is under unsustainable strain over mankind's constant demands, and the aerial views depicted in the 2009 documentary Home reveal just how wounded the Earth really is.
"The film has a very clear message," said filmmaker Yann Arthus-Bertrand on his website. "We have a greater impact on the Earth than it can bear. We over-consume and are depleting the Earth's resources. From the air, it's easy to see the Earth's wounds. So Home simply sets out our current situation while saying that a solution exists."
In conjunction with Earth Day Saturday (April 24), the Squamish Climate Action Network (CAN) is providing a free screening of the film - which member Ana Santos calls "a masterpiece of cinematography, a feast for the senses" - at the Adventure Centre at 7 p.m.
"In 200,000 years on Earth, humanity has upset the balance of the planet, established by nearly four billion years of evolution," states the film synopsis. "The price to pay is high, but it's too late to be a pessimist: humanity has barely 10 years to reverse the trend, become aware of the full extent of its spoliation of the Earth's riches, and change its patterns of consumption."
The admission price is in keeping with the filmmaker's own unprecedented approach to distributing the film -on June 5 2009, Arthus-Bertrand and his filmmaking partner Luc Besson made the documentary freely available to 50 countries simultaneously using a wide array of media methods.
"I got the idea of distributing the movie on pretty much every format for free whenever possible after talking to Patrick de Carolis who wanted to buy the film for France Television. He told me that he couldn't broadcast it until two years after its theatrical release," said Arthus-Bertrand.
He said he got the idea for the movie after watching the reaction in French Parliament to a screening of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. By taking photographs of the Earth, he said, the subject becomes humanity, which is the same topic behind all movies.
Arthus-Bertrand began the ambitious project with barely a written word to draw from, and he let the planet tell its own story.
"I made the movie without a script based on a single page synopsis. I knew the story I wanted to tell but the narrative only emerged as we were shooting, especially the central issue of energy - first the energy of human muscle power, then the revolution sparked by what we call 'pockets of sunlight,' oil."
Home was conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being. The filmmaker not only wants to encourage people to change their way of life, he said, but to change their philosophy toward humanity and subsequently, the planet.
"I'd like people to want to help. To share. There's a magnificent quote from Th茅odore Monod: 'We've tried everything except love.' I hope this movie will be synonymous with a lot of love."
