Stephen Rees's blog

I went this evening to one of the community showings of this new DVD, at St James Hall on Vancouver’s West Side. The hall was indeed crowded, and mostly a young crowd at that, and they were all very receptive to the message. No Impact Man was first a blog, now a movie and a book. The bog covered the year in which Colin Beavan tried to have no net impact on the planet, which of course was also covered by the film crew and a surprising amount of main stream media coverage including an appearance on the Colbert Report and regular updates on Good Morning America. As well as all sorts of press, radio and other media. Indeed the extent of the coverage was such that there was an immediate backlash from other bloggers, casting aspersions on his motivation. After all he had already two published books and the project was designed to provide the material for the third. Beavon himself is unabashed and deals with all of this in the movie, admitting it all would help sales of the book but that he would have been using his talents in this way anyway on some other project but at least this one would be doing some good.

The entire family is in the film, with Beavon’s wife acting as a neat foil to much of his unrealistic idealism, but she is, of course won over in the end. The small girl child steals every scene she is in – naturally. Only the dog has a small walk on part. And Beavon is clear that not everything worked, that he had to make all kinds of exceptions – and some things just don’t get mentioned, like the carbon footprint of the film crew who follow him everywhere. He even tries to exist for six months without electricity except for one small solar panel, which he is lent, that allows him to run his computer to keep up his blog. It is not clear how he recharges his cell phone, but that also plays a significant role. Everybody is calling him. He gets all kinds of speaking dates.

While the media seem to have been obsessed with the fact that he managed to exist without toilet paper, he himself made it clear that for the family the real successes were in the fact that Beavon lost twenty pounds without once visiting a gym, his wife’s health greatly improved due to her new found vegetarianism and the kid had a ball. The laundry scene (leave to soak in tub with borax for three hours in cold water then all jump in and stomp it) alone is worth the price of admission.

The idea of course is not that we all try to emulate him but that this will raise the possibilities for everyone to consider what they themselves might do. Interestingly he says that if there is only one thing you are prepared to do that should be joining a community project to improve your local environment. He points out that we have lost a very important thing we once had when we embrace consumerism and that was the ability to act together. And that there have been and are many groups all over the place all working hard to make small but significant improvements and where one more pair of hands will make a big difference.

It is for this reason that he has chosen community showings of the film rather than the usual commercial release. It has already attracted attention at film festivals. It is indeed an entertaining and thought provoking film. And it is not just about the environment but relationships – and has a genuine drama at its core, which is touching and relevant to how we are all going to have to change and what that means for all of us. I recommend it.