Posted by Andrew Stevenson
For me, the film that radically redefined my sense of what an environmental film could be was Mark Lewis’ 1988 documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. While countless nature films that came before it relied on imperious narration, sombre talking heads and an unremittingly gloomy tone to hammer home their message, Cane Toads deployed unrestrained humour, quirky, memorable characters and a playful use of fictional movie-making conventions: subjective camera angles (ie., a toad’s POV), suspenseful editing and horror film music. By focusing on invasive toads as its unlikely subject (as opposed to cuddly polar bears, penguins or dolphins), the film manages to turn yet another cliche of the environmental documentary on its head: that of nature as the perpetually passive victim of human encroachment.
In Cane Toads, the tables are turned; nature (in the form of oversized and oversexed amphibians running rampant across vast stretches of Australia) is shown as a disruptive force impacting both human lives and the human environment. Nature is not romanticized or eulogized in a simplistic fashion, but depicted as a multi-faceted and unpredictable force provoking a variety of human responses. At the same time, the film very effectively makes a vital point about the unintended and potentially disastrous consequences of human interaction with the environment.
Regards,
Andrew
Andrew Stevenson is a member of the Planet in Focus Board
