Brett Story brings "show don't tell" to the documentary world like few others have. She's great at articulating a thesis purely through juxtaposition of images, and in this case, a host of unreliable narrators. The Hottest August diverges from your traditional climate change doc in that it's not caught up in trying to convert climate change deniers. The water's already up to our ankles. We don't need more shocking images of glaciers collapsing. The question at hand in this film is "Why aren't we doing anything?"
In this film however, the answer to this question doesn't begin and end with corrupt politicians and corporate greed. It stems from a deeper, collective inability to imagine our future. The subjects interviewed in this film all feel uneasy about the future. Melting glaciers loom over their heads, but for everyone there's a more pressing issue at hand that requires their immediate attention. This is how other issues such as economic inequality, xenophobia, systemic racism, and imperialism keep us busy, and keep mass climate action from gaining traction.
The film is, on its face, just viscerally entertaining to watch. The pictures are gorgeous. The sound is textured, layered, and captivating.
One of Hottest August's most interesting motifs is dance. Zumba instructors, a crowd of 1920s fetishists lindy hopping, a dancehall party at an outdoor rink. It's hard to imagine all these people caught up in the immediate, physical joy of dancing having much of an answer to Story's most common question "Do you worry about the future?" But when your brain is fried in what feels like the last, suffocatingly hot days of the human summer, what else can you do?
In this film however, the answer to this question doesn't begin and end with corrupt politicians and corporate greed. It stems from a deeper, collective inability to imagine our future. The subjects interviewed in this film all feel uneasy about the future. Melting glaciers loom over their heads, but for everyone there's a more pressing issue at hand that requires their immediate attention. This is how other issues such as economic inequality, xenophobia, systemic racism, and imperialism keep us busy, and keep mass climate action from gaining traction.
The film is, on its face, just viscerally entertaining to watch. The pictures are gorgeous. The sound is textured, layered, and captivating.
One of Hottest August's most interesting motifs is dance. Zumba instructors, a crowd of 1920s fetishists lindy hopping, a dancehall party at an outdoor rink. It's hard to imagine all these people caught up in the immediate, physical joy of dancing having much of an answer to Story's most common question "Do you worry about the future?" But when your brain is fried in what feels like the last, suffocatingly hot days of the human summer, what else can you do?