Don’t Look Up, the latest celluloid offering from the writer-director Adam McKay, has become Netflix’s top film globally despite dividing critics and viewers.
The film, a satire in which two scientists played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence attempt to warn an indifferent world about a comet that threatens to destroy the planet, is an intentional allegory of the climate crisis.
Despite a stellar cast also featuring Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance, Jonah Hill and Timothee Chalamet, the movie has received a frosty reception from many film critics.
Photo: AP
But the lukewarm critical reception contrasts sharply with the response from the film’s allegorical heroes: climate scientists and activists.
David Ritter, chief executive of Greenpeace Asia Pacific, says he was struck by the sense of desperation portrayed by the film’s scientists, finding the parallel with the climate crisis “very, very powerful.”
“There are tens or hundreds of thousands of people across the world who are scientists, activists, campaigners … giving their lives to this work,” Ritter said. “The sheer number of people who have asked me ... what is wrong with our political leaders that they do not understand?”
Photo: AP
Prof Matthew England, co-founder of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, said Don’t Look Up was a “brilliant film.”
“It parodies our inaction to tackle climate change beautifully well, especially in relation to conservative government and the mainstream media,” England says. “I loved it and I understand a lot of climate scientists have the same reaction, whereas the mainstream media perhaps is feeling defensive because it is part of what is attacked in the film.”
Daniel Bleakley, a Melbourne-based climate activist, agreed, saying he hoped the “fantastic film” would draw attention to media reporting of the climate crisis.
“If we really want the broad public to start understanding the seriousness and urgency of the climate crisis, we need our media to be communicating it effectively.”
Bleakley said the film articulated a sense among climate activists of having their messages fall on deaf ears over many years.
“I have heard from a number of activists that after watching the film, they’ve felt heard, they’ve felt recognized.
“As activists and as climate scientists who truly understand the gravity and the seriousness and the urgency of the climate crisis — and the fact that every day counts — it’s almost surreal when you walk around in the world and see people going about their daily lives like everything’s completely normal.”
Ritter disagrees with criticism that the film lacks nuance.
“When someone says it was really heavy-handed, what were they talking about?” he asks.
“Were they talking about the subtle depiction of the way in which vested interests can institutionally corrupt the public good? Were they talking about the threat of unconstrained techno-optimistic capitalism?”
“The use of the scenes of chaos and drama interspersed with the interaction of characters in a more quiet, reflective mode … I thought it was particularly striking and evocative of how one experiences a world that is grappling with the climate crisis.”
“Don’t listen to the reviews,” Ritter added. “Watch the film — make your own mind up.”
The Guardian’s critics have described the film as a “ labored, self-conscious and unrelaxed satire,” and a “toothless comedy” that comes from a “position of lofty superiority that would drive away any partisans who still need to be won over.”
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your