Filmmakers envision a better future
Reveals climate solutions
I> BY ADRIAN MACK
n March 2015, the most powerful cyclone in Vanuatu’s history touched down on the tiny South Pacific island nation, destroying the homes of 70 percent of its population, uprooting ancient banyan trees, and killing at least 15 people. Almost immediately afterward, Nova Ami and Velcrow Ripper showed up with their newborn son, Phoenix. He travelled with them for the next year and a half as the filmmakers worked on Metamorphosis, making their way to other parts of the globe stricken by extreme-weather events.
“It was an incredible challenge,” Ripper admits, joining Ami in a call to the Georgia Straight from Toronto. “But there were advantages, too. If you’re gonna do an epic feature documentary with a baby, do it early. We didn’t have to miss a moment of him growing up.”
The presence of Phoenix behind the scenes of Metamorphosis (opening at the Vancity Theatre on Tuesday [June 26] ) adds a grace note to an intensely poetic film. We’ve seen plenty of movies about climate change; Ripper and Ami have instead crafted a seductive invitation to consider the transformative possibilities—perhaps that should be necessities—offered by the environmental emergency we face. Hair-raising footage of California’s record-breaking 2017 wildfires or the (now actually) sinking city of Venice is thus juxtaposed with the visionary work of artists like “underwater sculptor” Jason decaires Taylor or the architect Gianandrea Barreca—whose bosco verticale (“vertical forests”) decorate the skyline of Milan with treefestooned, Co2-consuming residential high-rise buildings.
Ultimately, it amounts to a catalogue of ingenious and often very simple adaptations to a postcarbon future, from near magically self-sustaining “garden pools” in droughtblighted Arizona to the super-efficient mini ecosystems of New Mexico’s “Earthships”, designed, as Ripper points out, to be “low-tech and made from our own trash”.
As the filmmakers note: viewers are “burned out” on the bad news (a condition dubbed “psychic numbing” in the film by venerable psychohistorian Robert Jay Lifton). Metamorphosis wants to inspire, or “move beyond the crisis phase”, as Ami puts it. The arrival of the couple’s first child naturally raised the stakes.
“Making the film with our son, it really brought up these questions every day,” says Ami, a B.C. native, like Ripper, who was “changed” by her encounter with the California wildfires and the community resilience she witnessed in the aftermath. “What’s our role in terms of protecting him and preparing him for what’s gonna happen next? How do we do that? What’s our purpose here? How can we teach him?”
Asks Ripper: “If that isn’t a moral responsibility, what is?”
Echoing the argument made by his friend Daniel Pinchbeck in the fine 2017 book How Soon Is Now—it makes a good companion to Metamorphosis—ripper adds that there is one almighty salve for the profound and often crippling grief we feel over an ailing biosphere.
“I want to say that meaning is an important aspect of our soul’s journey,” he says. “I believe behind every cynic is a broken heart. What helps us to avoid having our hearts broken is finding a way to be part of the solution. Find what you can do and what you can do well. Put that into service and you will find a great sense of meaning in your life.”