MOVIE REVIEW: No Impact Man

No Impact Man, which had its world debut earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, takes a look at the personal fallout resulting from one man's decision to eliminate his family's impact on the environment in downtown Manhattan. The documentary opens in theaters on September 4th, 2009, with a DVD and digital release to follow.

Colin Beavan, author and newly self-proclaimed environmentalist, decides to leave behind a life of liberal complacency for a vow to make zero environmental impact for one year. No more automated transportation, no more electricity, no more non-local food, no more material consumption. That is, until his espresso-guzzling, Prada-worshipping wife Michelle, and their young toddler, enter the fray. The film is billed as "an insightful and funny look at how one family deals with turning their lives upside down in the name of the planet."

Review by Audrey Lane Geis

Henry David Thoreau said about his decision to live in the wilderness, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Instead of going into the woods to live deliberately, Colin Beavan did just the opposite. He brought the lifestyle of 'living deliberately' to his apartment in New York.

The movie, No Impact Man, documents the year-long journey of creating no environmental impact that Beavan takes with his wife and two-year-old daughter. While the film won't be out in theaters until September, I had the chance to attend the New York City premiere this past May. Within minutes of arriving at the premiere, I was immersed in the pre-screening revelry: I was pulled into a dance circle, given agave lemonade blended in front of me with pedal power, and re-introduced into the world of compost. Looking around at the bike wielding, generation spanning, flannel-wearing crowd, I realized that what I had found was a piece of the San Francisco Bay Area in the center of our country's most bustling city.

The film itself portrayed Beavan and his family as they go through their journey. According to the film, the average human creates 1600 pounds of trash a year and the average product we consume travels 1500 miles to get to us. The family tries to reduce that number to zero. They give up everything from elevators to toilet paper to any food that is packaged or not made locally to all transportation that is not self-powered.

In the recent trend of portraying political issues through personal stories, the film is really more about the emotional journey of the family than the difficulties of giving up anything that creates waste. The family has to deal with the reactions of people who think they are too extreme. Without giving away too much of the film, the family must deal with being called 'bourgeois fucks' and being told that they give real environmentalists a bad name.

However, when the Beavan's turn off electricity halfway through their year, they are truly creating no impact, and it is very obvious that it is not simply for show. At the premiere, Beavan said of his actions, "I call it ostentatious non-consumption." In today's society where so many companies are relying on greenwashing to perpetuate conspicuous consumption, many people can feel that if they buy a reusable bag or a trendy shirt with the words "green is the new black" scrawled on it, they are doing their part. Beavan reminds us that this is not the case.

But Beavan says that he is not the only one who was leading the project. "[My daughter] Isabella was really the teacher," he said. He spoke of a time when she was riding on his shoulders as they walked home and there was heavy rain. She was crying intermittently as he tried to keep their umbrella over them when he realized that she was not crying because she wanted to stay dry. He said, "She was crying because she couldn't feel the rain." The ease of a young child living without so many things that we have become accustomed to should be a lesson for all of us.

However, "No Impact Man" Beavan guarantees us that he doesn't expect everyone to live completely off the grid like he did. He says, "It's about finding a way to get what we need in a sustainable way. It's not about deprivation." As the movie reminded me, when we throw something away, it doesn't just go away. It goes to a landfill in an assumedly low-income area and negatively affects the health of the people who live nearby.

While I don't think my personal lifestyle would allow me to become as completely in touch with the earth as No Impact Man and his family, I would like to get a little bit closer. I personally plan to get my produce and other goods locally, so they are not packaged in excess plastic and I am in the process of acquiring a bike so I can 'get myself there on my own steam' as Beavan puts it. (Audrey, our reviewer, purchased her bike to navigate the streets of Brooklyn shortly before this interview went to press. –ED.)

Doing good things for the environment is not about what others think or about following the latest trend. It's about living deliberately. If you need more inspiration, go see the film, which will be in theaters in September, or rent the DVD when it comes out. If you need inspiration in the meantime, try internalizing No Impact Man's words: "The question is not, can I make a difference, but do I want to be the kind of person who tries?"

To reference ten easy ways to come closer to No Impact, check out: http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2009/05/no-impact-mans-top-ten-ecolifestyle-changes.html