I enjoyed this movie so much that I actually went back to the theater a few days later to see it a second time.
It tells the story of a crusading journalist who discovers that there is a definite link between the green algae that keeps washing ashore on the North Breton coast and the deaths of animals and finally several men who spent too much time inhaling the toxic fumes it gives off.
It was one thing to establish the link and another thing to get the government and agribusiness to recognize and act on it. Agribusiness is a very important part of the Breton economy, and the large cooperatives that control it didn't want anyone to suggest that the farming techniques they encourage - a heavy use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides - might in any way be linked to those deaths.
So this movie is the story of the journalist's crusade against those big-money concerns as well to bring the truth to light.
The script is intelligent if, on occasion, a little didactic. The acting is all fine to very fine.
One note: the credits say that the movie is based on the graphic narrative of the same name, Inès Léraud and Pierre van Hove's *Green Algae: The Forbidden History*. That's somewhat misleading. The graphic narrative, which I just finished reading , is mostly a recounting of the facts of the case and the major players. The movie makes a judicious selection from all that, and creates the character of the woman journalist and her female partner, who are not in the graphic narrative. The creation of those two characters, and their personal lives, gives what would otherwise be a recounting of a lot of facts and figures a human aspect that makes the movie a lot more appealing than a documentary on the same topic might have been.
I don't know if this movie will ever come to the States. It deals with a problem that is fairly local to western coastal Brittany. But it would be a shame if it weren't shown in the States, because it's a very well done movie.
It tells the story of a crusading journalist who discovers that there is a definite link between the green algae that keeps washing ashore on the North Breton coast and the deaths of animals and finally several men who spent too much time inhaling the toxic fumes it gives off.
It was one thing to establish the link and another thing to get the government and agribusiness to recognize and act on it. Agribusiness is a very important part of the Breton economy, and the large cooperatives that control it didn't want anyone to suggest that the farming techniques they encourage - a heavy use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides - might in any way be linked to those deaths.
So this movie is the story of the journalist's crusade against those big-money concerns as well to bring the truth to light.
The script is intelligent if, on occasion, a little didactic. The acting is all fine to very fine.
One note: the credits say that the movie is based on the graphic narrative of the same name, Inès Léraud and Pierre van Hove's *Green Algae: The Forbidden History*. That's somewhat misleading. The graphic narrative, which I just finished reading , is mostly a recounting of the facts of the case and the major players. The movie makes a judicious selection from all that, and creates the character of the woman journalist and her female partner, who are not in the graphic narrative. The creation of those two characters, and their personal lives, gives what would otherwise be a recounting of a lot of facts and figures a human aspect that makes the movie a lot more appealing than a documentary on the same topic might have been.
I don't know if this movie will ever come to the States. It deals with a problem that is fairly local to western coastal Brittany. But it would be a shame if it weren't shown in the States, because it's a very well done movie.
