By Alice Tynan
The US may have Al Gore and Leo DiCaprio as their environmentalist pin-up boys, but Australia now has Dorjee Sun. A young Australian lawyer and entrepreneur, Dorjee (with a little help from narrator Hugh Jackman) is the star of Cathy Henkel’s engaging and inspiring documentary The Burning Season.
The film tracks Dorjee’s pursuit to save Indonesia’s forests by way of a carbon trading. With tireless energy, he criss-crosses the globe, often with Aceh’s Governor Irwandi, pitching major corporations to invest in the protection of Indonesian forests as ‘carbon septic tanks’ and holding his breath that forests will be included in the new UN Bali roadmap. Dorjee’s Herculean efforts are both engaging and informative, and it’s terrible to see them threatened by the Global Financial Crisis.
Henkel also follows orang-utan sanctuary owner Lone Droscher-Nielsen and Sumatran farmer Achmadi as they struggle with the realities of clearing forests by burning to make way for more lucrative palm oil plantations. For Lone, the devastating impact on the already threatened orang-utan population is more than her organisation can handle, while for Achmadi, raising enough money to send his daughter to school conflicts with his new environmental awareness, with poignant consequences.
The Burning Season succeeds on many levels. Dorjee is articulate, funny and entertaining, and of course the orang-utans are just gorgeous, with many an “awww” to be heard in the audience. The Bali summit created a well-utilised ‘race against the clock,’ while Achmadi’s palm oil predicament is intriguing. Henkel interweaves these stories well, with some particularly good edits. One standout cuts from Achmadi’s child in a rickety, peddle-powered ride, to a plush pram of pamered tots being chauffeured around the streets of California.
However such edits are also indicative of Henkel’s hand behind the scenes. And while clever cuts and thoughtful juxtapositions are affective and amusing, Henkel’s involvement with Achmadi’s storyline is a little more problematic. The documentary indicates that Achmadi decided to visit a local environmental agency WALHI, and yet in speaking with Henkel after the screening, she confirmed that she had in fact introduced the two parties. This may not seem like much, and indeed it’s well accepted that, ‘the very act of observing a situation, changes it,’ however it would probably have been more prudent (though arguably less dramatic) for Henkel to have included her involvement in these affairs on screen.
This is a minor quibble in what is a thoroughly entertaining and wonderfully inspirational documentary. Inspired by Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Henkel has succeeded in showcasing Australia’s own climate change champion, as well as adding a unique voice to the choir espousing that carbon emissions are a global problem. Deforestation in Indonesia has been occurring at the scale of a Manhattan-sized area each day, with Indonesia right behind the US and China for carbon emissions.
May The Burning Season engage you with these shocking statistics, entertain you with a fast-paced, high-stakes storyline, and motivate you with its driven, well-meaning and cuddly cast of characters.
Inspired? Then check out Ten Things You Can Do
Australian release date: 9 July 2009 (at selected cinemas)