Cannes. The 11th Hour.

"True to its doom-laden title, global-warming doc The 11th Hour [site] presents the viewer with reams of depressing data, loads of hand-wringing about the woeful state of humanity and, finally, some altogether fascinating ideas about how to go about solving the climate crisis," writes Variety's Justin Chang of the doc co-produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio. "[T]he dizzying assemblage of talking heads (among them Stephen Hawking, Mikhail Gorbachev, science reporter Andy Revkin and heads of environmental orgs such as Lester Brown, Tim Carmichael and Wes Jackson), all well-spoken and at times prone to philosophizing, turn The 11th Hour into a ruminative essay on what it means to be human in a scarce world."

The Guardian's Charlotte Higgins listens in as DiCaprio defended Al Gore against the former VP's critics, and: "Speaking about his own lifestyle, DiCaprio said that he drives a hybrid car and that his home is fitted with solar panels. Asked how he travelled to Cannes, he said: 'I flew commercially. I try as often as possible to fly commercially' - a reminder that, while a small but increasing number of Britons are giving up flying altogether, for the Hollywood A-lister there is a preliminary step: eschewing private jets."

"The film isn't afraid to take a moderately political line, pointing the finger at corporate globalisation and governments' complicity with it, and although the film isn't angrily didactic on a Michael Moore level, it couldn't be accused of being apolitical either," writes Jonathan Romney for Screen Daily. "The film suffers most from its form, being a routine succession of interviews interspersed with archive footage, assembled in a not always coherent fashion, with occasional animated scientific diagrams likely to confuse more than enlighten."

"[I]t's obvious that environmental documentaries have found favor with Cannes' programmers," notes Scott Roxborough in the Hollywood Reporter. "Less obvious is whether the message of these films is having any effect on Cannes and the hordes of film executives swarming the Croisette. The green message of 11th Hour stands in sharp contrast to the tones of CO2 emissions and mountains of trash produced during the festival."

Update, 5/24: "Unfortunately, notwithstanding an intriguing opening montage that careens from chaotic to tranquil at a rapid pace, The 11th Hour feels like a low grade IMAX production, full of heart but virtually without structure," writes Eric Kohn at indieWIRE.

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Cannes @ 60. Index.

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Posted by dwhudson at May 21, 2007 2:59 PM