By Chris Knight
National Post

★★★★

Who knew the end of the world could be so beautiful? The latest eco-doc from Jennifer Baichwal (Manufactured Landscapes, Watermark), co-directed by Edward Burtynsky and Nicholas de Pencier, shows viewers some of the large-scale changes we are making to the planet. Like the second sunrise of a hydrogen bomb, they are equal parts stunning and scary.

Take “Bagger 293,” an earth-moving machine working an open-pit coalmine in Germany. Ninety-six metres tall and using 16 megawatts of power, it could scoop up the material needed to build the great pyramid in less than a month. It looks like something out of science-fiction; in fact, you can see one in the background of a shot in TV’s Westworld. The mine is expanding, displacing local residents; but it remains a weirdly beautiful sight.

Not all the film’s segments are doom-and-gloom. Narrated by Alicia Vikander, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch visits an electric-car-battery plant in Michigan, and delivers a time-lapse trip through the 57-kilometre Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland, which will reduce the dangers and pollution of trucking freight along mountain roads. The film opens and closes in Kenya’s Nairobi National Park, where mammoth mounds of elephant tusks are set ablaze to stop them being sold on the black market.

By Chris Knight
National Post

The three directors of Anthropocene: The Human Epoch are trying to describe the editing process required to bring an estimated 375 hours –15 days! – of footage down to a 90-minute documentary.

Jennifer Baichwal likens it to a jigsaw puzzle. “Some people have the picture right there,” she says. “And some people look at it once and then hide it. This is like putting a massive puzzle together without ever seeing the picture.”

Edward Burtynsky chimes in: “And it’s got 2,000 pieces that don’t belong.”

Not to be left out, Nicholas de Pencier adds: “And half the pieces don’t actually fit!”

Editing Anthropocene – the title refers to a suggested name for the current geological era, one in which humans are the dominant force on the planet’s ecosystem – was a year-long process, after three years spent travelling to six continents to find material, including mining operations in Germany, the U.S., Italy and Norilsk, in northern Russia; a 57-kilometre rail tunnel in Switzerland; a huge seawall in China (a nation known for its wall-building prowess); and efforts to save endangered species in Kenya.

Read the full article here.