Monday 4 December 2023

NZIFF 2023: How to Blow up a Pipeline (Daniel Goldhaber, 2022)

A group of young people (Ariela Barer, Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage, Forrest Goodluck, Sasha Lane, Jayme Lawson, Marcus Scribner and Jake Weary) arrive in Texas with a plan to accelerate the world’s transition from fossil fuels.


As climate change wreaks havoc around the world Pipeline’s sense of urgency and rage is all the more timely.


We cross-cut between the team carrying out their plan, and the origins of the various team members. In a way, it is reminiscent of a heist movie, or more aptly, a men-on-a-mission movie.


The team’s stories are a cross-section of the consequences on unfettered capitalism and colonialism.


There is no soft-pedalling of the message or the team’s actions. The film lives up to its title.


Part of its charge comes from how hopeless the film’s world feels.


There is no sense of a higher good, no sense that there is any hope over the horizon. Scenes take place against backdrops of oil refineries. There is a sense of dystopia to the world - one feels the sense of hopelessness and dread


A movie so potent, I left it still charged.


Maybe it is the effect of watching too many major studio films which feel like soulless retreads of earlier hits (The Flash).


This movie is alive - and angry.


Will there be more movies like this in the future?


I do not know - but I have not seen a movie so justifiably enraged by the state of the world since The Purge franchise.


It might not lead to any realworld action (No movie can claim that) but it is somewhat liberating to plug into its need for action.


The best movie of the year.


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