Fall and Winter: A Survival Guide for the 21st Century

Beautifully filmed but also maddeningly diffuse, Fall and Winter combines stunning nature footage, interviews with radical thinkers, and explorations of ecological degradation in an effort to define the coming global crises and offer some hope for the future. Besides an activist interviewed amidst the ruins of Detroit, most of the experts here talk in natural surroundings—forests, lakesides, deserts, and ancient Native American ruins—with the narrative repeatedly returning to the words of a spokesman for the Hopi Nation who was finally allowed to address the UN after 40 years of trying (his native dress contrasts with the suits, ties, and briefcases of the diplomats, who don't really seem to be listening). Images of monstrous industrial equipment alternate with calming shots of soaring birds or the play of light on moving water. Filmmaker Matt Anderson's message seems to be that humans are on a collision course with environmental disaster (perhaps caused, as one thinker opines, by humanity's change from hunter-gatherer nomads to stay-at-home farmers eons ago) and that only a shift in consciousness will save humanity. But the likelihood of that shift is not entirely evident, although the film ends with hope-inspiring scenes of solidarity from Occupy Wall Street (still, where is that movement now?). Recommended, overall. Aud: C, P. (F. Gardner)