"An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power" is an American 95-minute film from this year (2017) by Cohen and Shenk who have collaborated in the past too. The title here gives already away of course that this is the sequel (not really long-awaited I guess) to the Oscar-winning "An Inconvenient Truth" from about a decade earlier. The director of that one is also a producer here. The entire film basically focuses on for American Vice President Al Gore's fight against climate change. But his fighting in here is mostly about people convincing because even after so many years the biggest obstacle is that many people still deny the existence. I personally am not (really) one of the non-believers, but sadly I am at a point where I doubt that people still care about not destroying the planet for further generations. The Trump election says a lot to that regard and so does the US getting out of the Paris treaty. That should not say something negative about Gore's efforts though, it is very impressive what he does and how he sacrifices his time for the cause.
The speeches by Gore feel a bit as if we are in the audience watching him live and this is definitely not a coincidence. So what can be done if Gore's words cannot change people's minds as honestly it is highly unlikely things will look any different with another decade passing? Maybe one reason is that climate change is never cited as a direct cause. For example you hear 100 people got killed by a flood, a hurricane or a tornado, but you don't read that 100 people died from global warming. There is no real connection to tragedy because it is such a creeping process and it is true that you mostly need time lapse photography to really get a visual impact of what is happening. But now I am talking about the problem per se and not really about the film anymore. All in all, it will probably not have the same awards success like the first film, but this by no means means it is a weak film. Quite the opposite actually as it deals with one of the most crucial issues of our times and this alone makes it a really important work. The fact that this documentary is contents-wise really 100% what I expected (and what you expect too if you have seen the first and at least vaguely know about the subject) is not a problem at all because it is still high quality. I definitely give it a thumbs-up and no doubt it is among the better, if not best, documentaries of the year. I hope it gets the Oscar nomination.
The speeches by Gore feel a bit as if we are in the audience watching him live and this is definitely not a coincidence. So what can be done if Gore's words cannot change people's minds as honestly it is highly unlikely things will look any different with another decade passing? Maybe one reason is that climate change is never cited as a direct cause. For example you hear 100 people got killed by a flood, a hurricane or a tornado, but you don't read that 100 people died from global warming. There is no real connection to tragedy because it is such a creeping process and it is true that you mostly need time lapse photography to really get a visual impact of what is happening. But now I am talking about the problem per se and not really about the film anymore. All in all, it will probably not have the same awards success like the first film, but this by no means means it is a weak film. Quite the opposite actually as it deals with one of the most crucial issues of our times and this alone makes it a really important work. The fact that this documentary is contents-wise really 100% what I expected (and what you expect too if you have seen the first and at least vaguely know about the subject) is not a problem at all because it is still high quality. I definitely give it a thumbs-up and no doubt it is among the better, if not best, documentaries of the year. I hope it gets the Oscar nomination.