Goodbye Gauley Mountain

Filmmaker Beth Stephens here addresses the environmentalist red-alert issue of "mountaintop removal," an explosive coal-mining technique that pulverizes coal-bearing highlands to bits. Appalachian mountaintop removal hits the Carolina wilderness with the equivalent of a Hiroshima atom bomb every 11 days. The results yield not only the desired coal but also toxins that are released into a devastated moonscape. San Francisco-based Stephens is married to famous porn-star/sex educator Annie Sprinkle (credited as co-director). The couple declare themselves "ecosexuals" and fight mountaintop removal with traditional West Coast ACT UP-style public performance art. Erotic tree-hugging and wedding ceremonies—in which the pair literally marry mountains—takes up relatively little screen time, while other segments look at homespun activists such as the late Larry Gibson, who says that mountaintop removal once again shows how America devalues not only hillbillies but also their hills. The only reasonable pro-mining voice heard here is the husband of an anti-coal campaigner; others are simply demonized as corporate fat cats. Subtitled “An Ecosexual Love Story,” this scattershot oddball documentary is a strong optional purchase. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)