Reviewed by Justin Bateman
Stars Pete Postlethwaite, Jamila & Adnan Bayyoud,
Alvin DuVernay, Piers Guy, Layefa Malini,
Fernand Pareau, Jeh Wadia
Written by Franny Armstrong
Certification UK 12A
Runtime 89 minutes
Directed by Franny Armstrong
The year is 2055, London is underwater and all that remains of human civilisation is a huge archive building in the Arctic Circle. Living there is the archivist (Postlethwaite) who has preserved all of humanity’s achievements – books, films, music, everything – in the hope that one day the planet might again be habitable. He watches news and documentary clips from 2008 in an attempt to understand how and why the human race managed to wipe itself out in such fast and spectacular fashion.
Described as a film about climate change, war, oil and human stupidity, The Age of Stupid weaves together six stories on these topics, with comments from the archivist and animated interludes to link it all together. Alvin is a recently retired palaeontologist who worked for Shell, finding oil off the coast of New Orleans. In a poverty-stricken village in Nigeria, Layefa dreams of becoming a doctor but is struggling to raise the money to study while Shell extracts millions of dollars from the local area every week.
Fernand is 82 years old and a mountain guide in the Alps where he has seen the glacier melt by 150 metres in his lifetime, while in England, Piers, a windfarm developer, battles against the ‘not in my backyard’ brigade as he attempts to promote renewable energy and slow down climate change. Jamila, an 8 year old Iraqi girl now living in Jordan, lost her father in the US attacks on Baghdad, and is trying to help her older brother get across the border to safety. And then there is Jeh Wadia, an Indian entrepreneur determined to get India airborne with his low-cost airline.
Following these stories elicits feelings of sadness, anger and often incredulity. Fernand is wistful for days gone by, when the icy glacial paths used to wend their way through the mountains of France. Wadia’s claims that his motives for bringing yet more pollution to the world are to “eradicate poverty” are simply laughable. Meanwhile, the windfarm protesters of ‘Middle England’ reveal themselves to be embarrassingly self-serving, claiming that their view would be spoilt and the value their properties would decrease. The Age of Stupid is smartly put together and avoids preaching, often a danger with emotive subjects such as these. The worry is that the only people likely to go and watch this are people who already agree with the sentiments of director Franny Armstrong. Still, it’s a worthwhile project and well worth a look.