Hindsight and Foresight: 20 Years After the Exxon Valdez Spill (2009) User Reviews

A tight little documentary that manages to conjure suspense despite the well-known outcome

[cinephile-shields · 10/10 · 10 October 2009]

The infamous oil spill, now over 20 years old is given the documentary treatment in this well written and produced little film. From first responder eyewitness accounts to the cautionary tale coda, 'Hindsight and Foresight' offers a chastening close-up of an environmental catastrophe. Eschewing clichés and obvious temptations to dramatize circumstances and demonize culprits, Shigenaka wisely allows events to gather their own momentum and gravitas. The narrator employs similar restraint in his expert delivery of the script. In exercising restraint, the director seems to be saying, there will be no sermon today, only these images and reportage which hopefully are sufficiently self-evident.