How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 12 March 2013
This article is a review of FUCK FOR FOREST. |
“It’s not like I have 100% trust for you yet, when it comes to equipment and material stuff.”
How do you draw the public’s attention to deforestation and the environment in this era of unbridled capitalism and narcissism? Well, if you’re Tommy and Leona, you form a Non-Governmental Organisation, ‘Fuck For Forest’, the purpose of which is to raise money through creating amateur erotica – photos and short films. Visitors to their website have to pay a donation to view the material. The money is earmarked to save the planet. The pornography is not presented as the exploitative kind, volunteers make it. This documentary follows the key members of the project. Along with their own regular contributions, they approach members of the public to participate - their success rate is one in ten. Is that more or less than you expected?
How do you draw the public’s attention to deforestation and the environment in this era of unbridled capitalism and narcissism? Well, if you’re Tommy and Leona, you form a Non-Governmental Organisation, ‘Fuck For Forest’, the purpose of which is to raise money through creating amateur erotica – photos and short films. Visitors to their website have to pay a donation to view the material. The money is earmarked to save the planet. The pornography is not presented as the exploitative kind, volunteers make it. This documentary follows the key members of the project. Along with their own regular contributions, they approach members of the public to participate - their success rate is one in ten. Is that more or less than you expected?
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A sexual response to the destruction of the natural world and puritanical hypocrisy is obviously going to get a mixed reaction. For those that read this in horror, and tut at their methods, ask yourself when was the last time you saw the rainforests being covered in the media? Not that I’m a particular advocate for the group, there is not enough material about them here to make a judgement call. And that’s the main problem with the film: The protagonists are not engagingly presented to the audience. We see them in a hippy dippy light, raiding bins on rollerblades and crashing another organisation’s protest; but we don’t get a sense of their personalities. The occasional voice-over narration adds a bit of info, though it’s far from enough. We find out they have about 420,000 Euros in the bank thanks to their efforts, but over what period was that collected? How many subscribers/visitors to their site do they get? Do they have any other revenue streams or benefactors? Has any money already been used? There is an annoying lack of detail.
The camerawork doesn’t help either. For all the evocative lighting, there is plenty of bouncy-cam following people around. Maybe less of that padding, and more actual face-to-face interviews would have been a better use of the 90 minutes, which feels malnourished in terms of content.
Eventually we get to see the key players travel around Latin America and end up at a section of rainforest aiming to help the local Indian community. The team are met with scepticism, aimed at both their altruism and methodology for raising finances. It’s actually the only time we get to see them in eco action, and they are not particularly articulate or dynamic, though that could be just as much the film’s fault.
FUCK FOR FOREST had the potential to be engrossing on a number of levels, but the ball was dropped.
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