Earth Island Institute

The new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, isn’t as good as the last Daniel Craig venture. The granite-faced Craig turns in another top-notch performance as the most brooding Bond we’ve ever seen, a person with actual emotions, even if they’re all of the dark variety. But the plot is a bit confusing if you haven’t seen the first Craig film recently. And the number of killings (even by 007 standards) seems gratuitous.

Aside from a Parkour-driven chase scene along Italian rooftops, the best thing about the movie is its winking nod to contemporary environmental issues. In a post Cold War, 9/11-fatigued world, the screenwriters (producer Michael Wilson and co-writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis, and Joshua Zetumer) have decided that the worst kind of crime is an ecological one.

The ur-villain is one Dominic Greene (played by the French actor Mathieu Amalric, now turning up everywhere since his amazing performance in “The Butterfly and the Diving Bell”), a scoundrel who, among other things, is scheming to make a fortune by capturing and then privatizing the water supply that poor Bolivian peasants depend on. If this sounds like a re-hashed version of the Cochabamba “Water War” against Bechtel seven years ago, then you remember your current events pretty well.

The best part, though, is that even as Greene and his secretive Quantum organization are damming up Bolivia’s rivers, they are posing as well-meaning global environmental philanthropists. You see, the villains are using a front group called Planet Greene to buy up property that they tell donors they are securing for conservation purposes. In reality, they’re just trying to lock up the country’s water supply.

I couldn’t help but smile at the delicious irony the screenwriters are pointing out. In a society increasingly infatuated with all things sustainable, any depredation is excusable – as long as you cloak it with environmental do-goodism.

 

Comments

Great info, thanks

By Tamagotchi Town on 2008 12 28

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Interesting review. Thanks.  Any chance of doing same for the upbeat, inspiring and empowering environmental film, FUEL shortlisted for an Academy Award nomination?

Being a grassroots film that took its director, Josh Tickell over 10 years to produce, your weighing in would make huge difference towards betterment of humanity! People of all ages from all walks of life who see “FUEL” are in awe and “get” its message: “Change your fuel...Change the world.”

For those who haven’t seen FUEL yet, it’s opening in Washington state at 3 venues this month, then in NY and LA early February. See the FUEL trailer and theater schedule (or have opportunity to ask that it be shown in your local theater) at http://www.thefuelfilm.com. 

Thanks for this consideration.

D. Dupre’

By Deborah Dupre on 2009 01 08

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