TIFF 2021: Burning
TIFF 2021Eva Orner’s account of the January 2020 bush fires that brought Australia to its knees is a redundant, but still necessary piece of journalistic picking aimed squarely at the politically and financially influential establishment with hopes that they might pause, listen, and reflect. For those of us who sit in the choir, Burning doesn’t educate, articulate, or resonate in any particular way that is powerful, particularly nuanced, or new. If anything, singing loudly about action on global warming makes this choir member pine for some more varied anthems rather than the same old playlist.
Burning is a fairly straightforward presentation of documentary style – talking heads, news footage, and an overarching narrative. Its coverage of the devastation of the 2019-2020 summer down under follows three distinct paths. Firstly, the culture of denial in the Australian conservative government and media. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is the film’s front-and-centre whipping boy. The stories and candor in Burning certainly provide a commentary that feeds the angry, hungry left, but at the same time, Orner isn’t just campaigning for the sake of campaigning. She has compiled plenty of footage of Morrison saying dumb things clearly kowtowing to either his own anti-science views or the need to be liked by powerful political stakeholders. It’s the same thing with media: plenty of clips showing Australian news anchors discussing the problem of serial arsonists. Arson or not, the story of these fires was their size and ferocity. The important talking points lay in the nature of accelerant – the dangerous conditions left by a changing climate – not who lit a particular match.
Secondly, Burning does a solid job communicating the scope of the fires. Honestly, the world media did a good job of that too in January 2020, but this film supplements prior knowledge with a shocking look at those news stories from ground zero. It really was a horrifying event in several localities, and only the coldest of hearts wouldn’t be moved by the plight, and sight, of so many animals suffering. It’s interesting how animals in harm’s way often evokes a deeper emotional response than humans at risk. And lastly, Orner attempts, as a positive purveyor of hopeful messaging would be expected to paint the future with a muted optimism. Burning finds and interviews a young Australian activist and, in her, finds some measure of hope. More interestingly and more inspiringly, the film briefly talks about investment in what is the world’s largest solar farm and the challenge of packaging and distributing solar electricity from the continent of Australia to Asia. If there were a new piece worth delving into, it should have been here. This provides some of the film’s most educational worth, frankly.
The thing is that Burning doesn’t strike a chord or go anywhere new. In the arena of filmmaking, Burning is a relatively slight although perfectly effective documentary. To climate-change believers, this movie is merely singing to the choir. Nothing to see here but scorched earth and suffering wildlife – further evidence to validate their beliefs. However, once Burning is distributed, later this year on Amazon Prime, it proposes to and wishes to re-engage in a debate with climate-change deniers and the slow-moving selfish elite with the thesis that the world, even if it’s not on fire, has become an accelerant for future tragedy and everyone of means has to do his or her part in saving the world – old news as this may be to many.