Illustration by Thereza Rowe.
I suppose it’s quite a sad thing when I am no longer massively shocked by a movie that exposes what essentially adds up to murderous misdemeanour, yet such are the times we live in. Yet another expose of a global corporation which – quelle surprise – specialises in the extraction of fossil fuels? Hell bent on making maximum profits for their shareholders, at any cost to people and environment? Hell yeah! Bring it on!
Crude is an ambitious movie, mainly because film maker Joe Berlinger has decided to focus on the legal side of the story – and as we all know law can be impossibly complex to grasp. Especially when it involves a transnational case. The star of the story is local Ecuadorean lawyer Pablo Fajardo, who started working in the Texaco oil fields of the Amazon at just 14 years old. He was so disgusted by the injustices that he saw on a daily basis that he was motivated to get educated and get even. Through sponsorship from the Catholic church he trained to become a lawyer, and when he is not taking on the gigantic Chevron corporation (which merged with Texaco in 2001) Pablo is shown on his weekly philanthropic sessions with the impoverished locals. But the film doesn’t shy away from less obviously heroic characters, namely in the form of Steven Donziger - the American lawyer who wants to secure the all important funding of a major law firm which in itself hopes to make a big profit from a successful litigation. Steven is outspoken and could easily come across as the bullish westerner wading into a situation and country he understands little of, but it’s clear that the Ecuadoreans he works with feel great affection for this huge man (well, he seems that way, maybe it’s just that the Ecuadoreans are small).
From the lush riverbanks or the Ecuadorean tribes’ contaminated homeland to the snowy streets of Manhattan – where Steve frolics with his cute dog – we follow the story of these lawyers’ fight to hold Texaco accountable for the disgusting mess they have left the Amazon in. Astonishing scenes from the outdoor field inspection show the lawyers for both sides contemplating great scoops of thick oozy tar, dug out from just centimetres below the allegedly remediated ground (a complex ten step process to clean up the wanton dumping of billions of tonnes of toxic waste). The increasingly worried Chevron lawyers grasp at ever shortening straws, eventually foisting blame onto the local (and far from faultless) Petroecuador company (who took over the oil fields in the 1990s). It is these moments which provide the movie with its funniest scenes – for the employees of Chevron are wanton in the digging of their own graves, giving away their lies with simple slips of the tongue. It’s very amusing.
Illustration by Thereza Rowe.
Once Pablo appears in the “Green Issue” of Vanity Fair Steven goes on a mission to secure celebrity endorsement for the cause, which is found in the form of Trudi Styler, who flies by private helicopter out to Ecuador to see the sights for herself. “My husband and I…” she introduces herself to a bemused gathering of locals, who were probably wondering if all white women have their eyes pinned open like permanently startled rats (the odious Chevron chemist suffers from the same ‘problem’). I found watching these scenes excruciating to watch, especially when the self-effacing Pablo, who still lives with his mum in a modest house full of books, is invited to a huge charity shindig in New York put on by Trudi and Sting’s Rainforest foundation. Here he is asked if he knows who The Police are. “No,” he laughs, waving his pass, “but now I’m with Sting!”
Despite the winning of a CNN Hero trophy, we’re left hanging at the end of the film, for this case is far from concluded. Even after the election of a new Ecuadorean president who is far less sympathetic to American multinationals, it could take up to 10 years for the case to get through court and for compensation to be agreed. And how do you compensate for the mass degradation of an entire region (the oil left behind is equivalent to 30 times that dumped by the Exxon Valdez), the loss of culture and the possible-but-almost-impossible to prove loss of life? Cancers and skin conditions are rife amongst the jungle inhabitants who have been known to build their shacks on top of old pits without knowing they are there and who drink, wash and play in the oily water on a daily basis.
We’re left with a shot of Trudi returning to install plastic rain water butts to ensure clean water for 4000 locals, but I could not help but wonder, how helpful is this in the long term? When so much damage has been done, how much does it help for strange looking white people to parachute in with quick fixes when there is no permanent solution in sight? And what does a permanent solution look like anyway? How on earth do we sort out the mess we’re in, one that stretches far further than those beautiful Amazon forests, the “lungs of the earth”?
I’ve sadly become almost inured to tales of depraved large multinationals, but films like this are essential in furthering stories like that of Chevron in Ecuador, especially when the fight is far from over. Like the Vanity Fair article that so excites Trudi, tipping points are essential in maintaining pressure on those who would not be held accountable for their actions: long may film makers follow these kind of subjects.
We previously blogged about Crude in June last year, including an interview with the director. Read this piece here and watch a great cut on youtube here.
You can catch Crude at the ICA for a few more days, and at selected cinemas across the country.
Tags:
activism, Amazon, chevron, crude, Documentary film, ecuador, film, ica, Law, oil, Rainforest Foundation, review, Texaco, Trudi Styler
