No Impact Man

"A Fifth Avenue family goes very green when writer Colin Beavan leads his wife, Michelle Conlin, and their baby daughter on a yearlong crusade to make no net impact on the environment in this engaging documentary. Among their activities: eating only locally grown organic food, generating no trash except for compost and using no carbon-fueled transportation. Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein's film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival." courtesy of netfilx

I knew this was going to be a movie that I wanted to blog about, and I was right. I only finished watching the movie a few seconds ago and already e-mailed a teacher about it as a movie to show in a sustainable design class. This movie is inspiring, scary, motivating and...whatever the right word for feeling guility is, but its rightfully so.

They talk about the guility aspect in the movie because there is a point where people apparently start to hate this family (which they dont understand why, and truly I dont either.) but someone is commenting on a theory about how it makes people feel guilty, and people don't like to feel guilty or feel like they are being told what to do or that they arent living their life properly or wrong (or even that this family is better than them which I think is what a lot of people originally perceieved.)

but I mean, I feel guilty when watching the movie, I'm watching this movie as i'm drinking out of a plastic water bottle, in my electricity lit room while I sit with trash cans full of trash - and I think "it needs to change" but deep down I know its not going to change that much. My theory on people being so angry against the family is because I think the family was going to the drastic measures, going vegeterian, making their own shampoo, living without electricity -- there is even a point in the movie where Colin even says "this is stupid, who does this? who lives without electricity?" but as you keep watching and the more he talks, hes doing it at the drastic level to make a statement, to get attention, to bring attention to the issue. He's not expecting anyone to live without electricity but he does want you to test and see how far you can go on nothing. Do you really need everything in your life? thats what its about.

"Is it possible to have a good life without wasting so much?"

definitley watch this movie!

p.s. obvioulsy you can tell my laptop has been fixed and i've been able to watch movies off netflix yet again - I'm back!