published at NOW Toronto
by Susan G. Cole
December 9, 2009
Editorial Rating: NNNN
Collapse, a new documentary by Chris Smith (The Pool, Home Movie) is more than it seems.
On its face, it gives radical thinker Michael Ruppert the Errol Morris treatment – feature-length interview punctuated by archival footage – to argue that the world is going to eco hell and economies all over the world are circling the drain.
It’s effective if you like your arguments one-sided. Ruppert, who turned to investigative journalism in the 70s after he blew the whistle on CIA drug dealing in the US and was thrown out of the LAPD, is very convincing. He chain-smokes and blabs about the evils of oil dependence and finagling financial institutions. But a few words from the dumbly diabolical polluters and climate change naysayers would have made the case even stronger.
What’s fascinating about Collapse is not the argument – in-the-know environmentalists and economic analysts won’t see much new here – but the person. Hunkered down in what looks like a darkened bunker, Ruppert’s a totally fascinating character, passionate, driven and desperate.
Like Naomi Klein, he’s been called a conspiracy theorist, a term I loathe when it’s applied to people who do their research and shed light on capitalism’s patterns and imperialism’s trends – or anything systemic, for that matter.
Ruppert’s really a modern-day Cassandra trying to get people to face up to the obvious.
Cop turned independent journalist Michael Ruppert speaks at length about peak oil, the economy and the decline of western civilization in Collapse.
Director Chris Smith (American Movie) introduces his excellent new documentary, Collapse, with a few brief sentences, and it’s a neat hook: while gathering research for a screenplay based on the CIA’s involvement in the ’80s drug wars, he came into contact with former Los Angeles cop and current investigative journalist Michael Ruppert. Though Ruppert had personal involvement with the drug war (he blew the whistle on a major drug trafficking operation involving the U.S. military), he didn’t want to talk about it. Instead, given a platform (and a captive audience in Smith), he wanted to deliver his homegrown treatise on peak oil, economic meltdown and the decline of western civilization.
Though often accused of being a paranoid crank, Ruppert commands some credibility — his self-published journal, From the Wilderness, counts a number of learned and powerful people among its readership and he showed a great deal of prescience in predicting the recent economic collapse. Much of his argument revolves around the idea of peak oil: Once the world is unable to produce more oil than is needed, the declining rate (and rise in cost) will bring about a halt in our economic infrastructure.
While Ruppert’s picture of a Mad Max-styled dystopia is somewhat easy to dismiss, much of what he states is rational and alarming: Oil is an integral part of many of the products we use (everything from paint to toothpaste), and society’s thirst for it is driving us to more extreme and environmentally dangerous solutions, including off-shore drilling and the Alberta oilsands. Additionally, director Smith adds credence to Ruppert’s argument by challenging him at every opportunity on his credentials, his sources and his potential biases.
The film is short, punchy and effective due to Smith’s expert aping of documentarian Errol Morris’s signature style in bringing Ruppert’s strange story to the screen (he even employs an ominous, oboe-tinged score). Ruppert appears as a mysterious figure proselytizing from a hidden bunker, surrounded by darkness. The camera rarely veers from him, except for the occasional use of effective stock footage.
If Collapse were simply a soapbox for Ruppert’s musings, it would remain compelling. However (without revealing any details), Smith inadvertently ends up crafting a story of a much more tragic figure than viewers expect. It isn’t just the ruin of the economy that Collapse is talking about, but the future of those willing to stick their necks out for a sliver of the truth.
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