No Impact, Man

No Impact Man (2008)
directed by Laura Gabbert & Justin Schein

I thought I was going to be lightly amused by this film that documents a writer's self-aggrandizing attempt to reduce his footprint on the earth.   Instead I found myself furious at the self-righteous sham that Colin Beavan engaged in.  No Impact Man should be called No Impact Scam, because the real trick is the commodification of a concept and the packaging of that for the profit of Colin Beavan.    Nice trick, No Impact Man.   Even the name No Impact Man is like a supervillain taunt.  I imagine him wearing some sort of skintight hemp outfit with a big zero on it and cackling while stroking his no-impact goattee and counting up the cash that this scam has brought in for him.   I'm sure all of this has "raised awareness" of something for somebody at some point, but let's call it what it is: a writer's scam to avoid having to get a real job as a minimum wage slave.  

Forming his Legion of Doom, No Impact Man declares an arbitrary set of rules that define his attempt to have no environmental impact.   I would have thought that shutting down the laptop and not blogging would have been high on the list of things that make an environmental impact, but hey, No Impact Man has to be seen making no impact otherwise how would people know that he is a supervillain.

And what would a supervillain be without sidekicks.  No Impact Man's sidekicks are Business Week Wife and Innocent Child and of course the ever present but never mentioned No Impact Dog.
Probably the most egregious omission in this film is the very high impact dog that No Impact Man keeps in Manhattan.   It's the size of a small horse.   And in the deleted scenes it looks like there might be a second dog in the household, too.  And yet there is never a mention of the dog in the film.   I haven't read his book, so I don't know if he mentions the dog in there.   But in the film this horselike hound is a glaring indicator of the conspiracy of silence that people like No Impact Man engage in when it comes to the arbitrary rules of "green" that they attempt to enforce.   While we see Colin and Michelle argue about having a second child there is never a question that maybe keeping a horse-sized dog in Manhattan is as irresponsible and selfish as keeping a donkey would be, and far less useful and clean to boot.

In fact, if No Impact Man managed to impact zoning and regulations so that people in New York could keep small pack animals it might go a long way towards creating the kind of environmentally friendly world that he claims to want.   A donkey would do all the things that their bicycles would do and it would also be a nice pet and could take the place of the otherwise useless carnivore they are keeping captive.   And yeah, I am curious if they put their dog on a vegetarian diet like themselves or if they granted the dog a big impact waiver to eat meat.   The fact that nobody ever questions the matter of the dog in the film is indicative of the kind of hucksterism that this project represents.

Another key moment is when a company lends No Impact Man a solar cell to power his laptop when he shuts down the power to his apartment.   Must be nice.   Must be grand to live a life where people just give you things.   Wow, I could try to lower my impact if people just gave me things.  I'd ride a donkey all thirty miles to my job every day if someone wanted to give me a donkey and some fodder.   But nobody's making a movie about me so I have to pay for gas and drive to work instead of hooking up my laptop to my free solar power so I can blog about how I walked up some stairs to feed some meat to my dog while I eat local Manhattan lettuce for lunch.

Initially I thought that No Impact Woman would be the villain here, what with her addiction to shopping and her job shilling for the man at Business Week.   But a few minutes watching No Impact Man's controlling personality and sullen lack of humor and I can see why I'd want to throw myself into my work and maybe get my happiness through shopping or a child because No Impact Man is a jerk.  And for better and for worse he's a jerk with an ideology and a plan which makes him both interesting and more of a jerk than your average plain vanilla jerk.   I suppose that explains some of the attraction she might have for him.   Still, he comes off as a big enough jerk that you kind of want her to go ahead and fill the house with expensive handbags.

I guess this whole project would be less ridiculous if No Impact Man was living in a suburb with even the smallest sliver of land associated with it.   I'd like to see how he feels about bike lanes if he or his wife had to bike thirty miles to work and thirty miles back.    (A donkey cart would be much better for this.  If anyone has one they'd like to donate to me, I'll take it.)   It's really quaint to keep a litter box full of mulch.  Keeping a pile in the yard is actually hard work, buddy.   One of the most telling images in the film for me was when No Impact Man decided to visit a farm and there he is standing in a field and scribbling stuff down in a notebook like Nancy Drew so that he can "learn about where food comes from."  Here's the answer:  your food comes from people who actually sweat and work so that you can sit in your apartment tossing meat chunks to your dog and scribble a blog entry on your free solar powered laptop, you worthless remora.  Oh, I stand corrected, a remora actually performs a function in return for its symbiotic existence.  

A lot of my vehemence (and I seem to be harboring a lot of it) has to do with the faux innocent naivete of No Impact Man's project.  "Oh, I didn't know that it was so hard to walk up all these stairs."  "Oh, I did't realize that keeping food in a clay pot wouldn't actually refrigerate it.   How stupid do you have to be to attempt to replicate a means of keeping things cool that is used in Nigeria?   I'm sorry, maybe I'm just ignorant of the advanced refrigeration techniques of the Yoruba, but frankly I don't think so.  I suspect that some bigger fraud sold No Impact Man a bill of goods about how keeping a pot in a second pot with some wet sand in between would make for a cheap refrigerator and because No Impact Man is equal parts huckster and rube, he went for it.    Maybe he's just lucky nobody tried to sell him on the idea of putting a layer of dog poop mixed with straw all around his house as insulation like they do in Zampoochia.

Seeing the piles of people jump on the bandwagon and follow No Impact Man's project is seriously disheartening.   Look, he's riding a bicycle on the Today Show!  But if watching No Impact Man peddle his story to the media is annoying, watching him peddle his bill of goods to college students is cringe-worthy.   It's insidiuous, not because being aware of your environmental impact is bad, but because thinking that you can live your life like No Impact Man and thus save the planet is bullshit plain and simple.   Do we live in a wasteful society?  You bet we do.   And do stunts like this have any long term impact?  Well, my answer is no.   And if your only response is that things like this experiment "raise awareness" then I can only say that raising awareness doesn't actually lead to long term changes. If it did, then there would be no pets allowed in Manhattan and they'd replace the motor vehicles with more organic donkey carts.   But they're never going to do that, are they?

I never thought I'd say this, but the real hero of this movie is an old long-haired paunchy hippy.   Mayer Vishner is the only person in the course of the film to question No Impact Man's premise and challenge the fact that what he does in this stunt cannot make up for the lifestyle that he and his wife encourage.

MAYER:  At the risk of being too personal, but, you know, it's not, it's just the facts. Michelle writes for Business Week.   


COLIN:  Yes. 


MAYER:  Millions of trees are cut down on a regular basis in order to promote the thoroughly fallacious propaganda that American corporate capitalism is good for the people, good for you and me. You know, now, if it's your contention that she makes up for it, that evens out because she doesn't take the elevator in your 5th Avenue co-op, I have to say you're either dishonest or delusional.

I think it was awesome that this moment was kept in the film by the filmmakers.   And while you might dismiss Mayer Vishner as a lefty, he's at least on the mark about the kind of "I recycled so I can keep working for the company that's making all of planned obsolescent products that can't be recyled" feel good activity that No Impact Man engages in.   No Impact Man's real superpower seems to be his power to quietly dodge the old hippie's thorny question and never address it.   And like the issue of the No Impact Horse Sized Dog, it's easy to bury the question because nobody wants to touch the issue of the working woman (even if she's working at a place that depends on the very system that her husband claims is destroying the world) just like nobody dares to question the notion of keeping a horse sized dog on 5th Avenue because dogs are cute and friendly.

And that's what's so damned galling about things like No Impact Man.  They give us a veneer of effort to hide our structural excess.   And to see people who have plenty of time on their hands preaching nonsense when so many of the rest of us have to work so hard just to keep from drowning is just plain evil.   Every day when I'm driving home from work and sometimes when I'm driving to work there are people like No Impact Man biking along in leisurely fashion and I think to myself "it must be nice to not have to be at work in five minutes so that I can just ride a bicycle and slow down the cars driven by poor schmucks who can't afford to cycle around in the country that has enriched the very jerks like No Impact Man who now tell me that I should do more to consume less of the things that made him rich."
I think in long sentences when I drive.  

So, No Impact Man made me fume in a way that I'm sure was horrible for the environment.   So I'm just going to go back to my compost heap and do my part to make the world slightly less artificial without making a blog to glorify myself while doing it.  

Documentis Personae
Colin Beavan, a somewhat naive jerk who decides to try an experiment
Michelle Conlin, the spouse of said naive jerk.  Writer for Business Week.  
Mayer Vishner, the hero of this movie

Original Music by Bobby Johnston

Extra Features
1. A Letter From Beth
Beth offers the No Impacts access to her books and periodicals. That's so nice of her.
2. Beachwalk & Talk
I really want to know if that second horse sized dog belongs to No Impact Man.
3. Bike Rant
This scene highlights the worst tyranny in the country, that of the homeowners' association, or in this case the co-op bozos who think a bicycle on the street outside of their building would be an eyesore.
4. Bobby Johnston, Composer
This may have been the most entertaining highlight of this experience for me.  I really liked the composer's methodology and the music is really light and fun.  
5. Building Super
Another hero.   This guy has to carry the weight of other people's attempts to have no impact or high impact or whatever.
6. Extended Mayer Rant
I was disappointed that the "extended" rant didn't include the key portion of the rant that was in the actual film.  
7. Freegans
I've always wondered about the incidence of parasites in food acquired through dumpster diving.
And I will continue to wonder because this scene doesn't answer that question.
8. How To Make A Pot In A Pot
The question isn't "how?" but rather "why?"  Nigerian style refrigeration?   Yeah.
9. How To Make Vinegar
Slightly useful if you don't already know how to make vinegar.
10.  Pregnancy Reveal Alternative
Not nearly as suspenseful as the way we find out in the final cut.
11.  No Impact Date
I think I'm going to call up someone tomorrow and ask her out on a No Impact Date.  
12. Scrabble
I can't believe they cut out this fascinating scene of people playing scrabble and talking about the environment.
13.  Sundance Q&A
Nobody asked and nobody answered any of the questions I wanted answered.
14. The Future of Bees
Maybe if there weren't so many itinerant hives and people were better about keeping local hives instead of trucking them in and taking them away we wouldn't have to worry about the colony collapses.  Also a reduced dependence on pesticides.  Oh, why do I bother suggesting things like this.  Just recycle some cups and take the stairs with that bag of meat for your horse-sized dog in Manhattan.    
15. Transportation Alternatives
And once again, nobody mentions donkey carts.   Because nobody wants to have to deal with the dirty reality of what it would take to make things better.  Clean air means smellier streets.  

Oscilloscope Releases
1. Gunnin' For that #1 Spot
Another documentary about people who look at basketball as their great chance.  Cheery.
2. Flow
Water and who controls it.  
3. Dear Zachary
There's only so much personal tragedy documentary I can handle.  I know this is a good story, but still.
4. Wendy and Lucy
Has Michelle Williams made a genuinely happy film lately?  The only way this one could seem less chipper would be if she were looking at basketball as her only hope out of a hopeless life.
5.  Frontrunners
People running for president of their high school class.   I'm sure these little sociopaths are fascinating.
6. Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie
If this movie actually does break out of the confining genre expectations of a Bigfoot Movie I'll be genuinely surprised.
7. Treeless Mountain
A depressing Korean film.   Just what I wanted for Christmas.   I'm sure it's also heartwarming in some way.
8.  Scott Walker 30th Century Man
Looks like it would make a good double feature with The Devil and Daniel Johnston.
9. The Garden
This is kind of the opposite of No Impact Man.   It also highlights why genuine attempts at doing something naturally constructive with urban land is more difficult than the window dressing that No Impact encourages.
10. Burma VJ
Now would be an interesting time to revisit this doc about Burmese protests.
11. Unmistaken Child
Another Tibetan lama story.  
12. No Impact Man
The trailer looks more playful than the actual people or the story is.