The Reichardt film was finally defined by the characteristic ambivalence of its maker: she was sympathetic to her activists up to a point, but even then tended to regard them as muddled, overly suggestible, more than a little lost. Goldhaber, by contrast, never doubts his protagonists' motives; he takes them for given, which is one reason the new film is both more straightforward and more immediately involving. (Reichardt's film was surveillance; Goldhaber's is embedded reportage.) Several years further down the line, climate action is now a pressing enough concern that it can draw in not just the Trustafarian crusties of eco-warrior stereotype, but passing thrillseekers (represented here by Lukas Gage and Kristine Froseth as a post-Greta Bonnie and Clyde, so turned on by their task they make out at one extraction site), online malcontents, and even grown-ups as diverse as Weary's terse homesteader and Léa Seydoux's mum in the recent One Fine Morning; it may be the one issue on which bipartisan consensus remains possible. (Whether you want to plant seeds or a flag, you still need a planet.) Goldhaber's collective want to do the right thing, and have the energy, resources and willingness to do it, but they're up against a system that has long known how to minimise disruption, even as it maximises destruction. They also display an enforced restlessness that can only make us jittery whenever they're found mixing chemicals or transporting drumfuls of ammonia. The film around them is quietly efficient, establishing personalities and schisms in the ranks without undue showboating or speechifying, and gradually converting one small act of resistance into a matter of life and death. With each lurch towards the objective of the title, Goldhaber lays out his own carefully articulated position on activism. It can be haphazard, yes, and often as messy as loosing soup on a Van Gogh or powder paint on pristine Crucible baize. It may also be the most urgent thing any of us ever do as the world burns.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is now showing in selected cinemas.
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