The Great Invisible

Filmmaker Margaret Brown conducts an inquest into the disaster of the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil-rig explosion/blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, a catastrophe that produced an oil slick the size of Rhode Island that would go on to smear beaches across Texas, Alabama, and Louisiana. Rather than just recapping the evening-news broadcasts, or adding to the public shaming of leasing company BP, or serving up images of ecological despair, Brown takes her camera to the people closest to ground zero. They include guilt-tortured surviving crew members of the rig, who received bonuses from BP to cut costs and violate safety protocols; fishermen whose livelihoods were destroyed by the oil spill and who now subsist on company payouts, and Gulf dwellers who are still spooning sticky masses of petrochemicals out of the water. Ironically, Deepwater Horizon was considered a showcase of modern “safe” drilling technology. Although one speaker says that the oil executives are not intrinsically bad people—just shortsighted and characteristically opposed to any regulations—the corporate picture that emerges here is damning. One cannot escape the verdict that no real lessons have been learned by a lobbyist-heavy and greedy oil industry. Highly recommended. [Note: this is available with public performance rights for $95 for public libraries and $295 for colleges and universities from Ro*co Films Educational, www.rocoeducational.com.] (C. Cassady)