Review by Desirée Leal

Environmental documentaries are a dime a dozen nowadays and - no matter how noble the cause or how urgent the message - it seems as though most of them blend together like so much recycled paper product. It seems terrible to say, but we've heard it all before, and we all know we're in deep sh*% (literally!). As more people become educated about environmental concerns, the vast majority of audiences who go to see environmental docs are already pretty aware of many if not all of the issues that are most pressing to the overall health of our planet. And, more often than not, these films become little more than a simple case of preaching to the choir. This was sadly the case for directors Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy at VIFF's first screening of BELONGING. Though the overall look of the film is more consistent with something you might flick to at midnight on a public television station on a Sunday night, the images were quite beautifully shot and gracefully edited in a way that really draws you in. But unfortunately that was not enough to sustain my interest and I found myself becoming increasingly bored and eventually irritated - like being in grade ten with no substitute teacher for Biology class.

This is not to say that the subject matter addressed is not interesting or deeply moving. The main problem with BELONGING lays in the fact that it is far too general. At first I thought I was about to watch a film about the Inuit and how environmental abuses have impacted their lives, but soon the narrative digressed into a wide rage of discussions which, although connected, are not immediately relevant to the initial journey. After a while, BELONGING becomes diluted - like dipping an inked brush into a glass of water. The ink disperses into the liquid and colours it, but in the end it's still just murky water which you can't exactly paint with. Having said all of this, I applaud Ungerman and Brohy for their efforts and hope that many more filmmakers will, like them, take up the challenge of communicating the urgency of the environmental message to the world. The act of delivering these messages shouldn't be regarded as futile or depressing. But the message is too important to muddle and therefore needs - now more than ever - to be bold, loud and, most of all, clear. BELONGING carries a noble intention, but lacks the clarity of vision needed to make an impact in a noisy and cluttered visual world.

Belonging
Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy | Canada | 2008 | 58min

Thur. Oct. 2 | 8:45pm | Empire Granville Theatre 5
Sat. Oct. 4 | 1:15pm | Vancity Theatre