 I Heart Chickadees This week, as I sit down to the task of writing my column I’m torn between doing a movie review or reporting on the progress of spring. The advance of Spring is always of interest. Geese make hourly sorties over snow covered fields hoping that the large pond to the east has miraculously thawed. The calls of Robins are once again a morning sound, and waves of Varied Thrush, a bird which often beats the Robin back to the Cariboo, this year seems to lag behind. Though the odd Robin is heard at dawn, or flushed from dense evergreens, this is not a banner year. Golden-crowned Kinglets are back, and travel the forest with year-round-resident flocks of Chickadees. Yesterday afternoon three Red-tailed Hawks suddenly appeared high on a rocky outcropping to the north. Perhaps they are just passing through, or have returned to claim the prime Red-tailed Hawk nesting habitat surrounding the house. Yet, even as spring has much to say, I still turn to an indoor story. Bear with me as I think it relates. A week ago I watched a movie entitled “I Heart Huckabees.” It was not a movie I’d picked for myself. It was a movie passed on to me with the request that I later return it to the video store. At the time I didn’t ask for a personal opinion, but when I did, it came in the form of a single word, ‘weird.’ The movie begins as one character walks along and vehemently curses - not aloud, but in his thoughts. (Note: Though the string of four letter words might be off-putting for some, I recently sat near a group of young teenage girls in a fast-food restaurant, so I’ve heard far worse.) Quickly we learn the character’s attempt to save a marsh and woodlands from development has not worked out. He manages to preserve just a single large boulder, and no one seems to care much about that. Anyone standing on the side of nature over development might easily identify with the movie character, and be forgiven for cursing under their own breath. At this point the movie veers into unusual territory. The conservationist character, troubled by recent coincidences, seeks help from two existentialist detectives. The detectives’ mantra is “everything is connected and everything each person does, matters.” Later, an equally forceful nihilist character is introduced, who happens to be a protégé of the detectives, and she proffers “that nothing a person does matters, and life is chaos.” Two camps of thought hover over all the movie proceedings, and the plot continues as each school of thought attempts to exert control over various characters. A big box store, Huckabees, is the seemingly caring corporate giant that has attached itself to the ‘green’ movement in a bid to garner whatever benefits the alliance might provide. None of this may seem relevant to a bird column. However, the movie does comment, with limited success, on personal motives - how people are torn between selfish action and benevolence, and the underlying causes of each. Without being overly didactic - this is entertainment after all - the movie steers through material that can be overwhelming when badly handled. And unless the viewer is immersed in a world of environmental concern and the feeling of futility involved in trying to make a difference, the plot might just seem to be about a bunch of mixed up people failing to understand each others point of view. Essentially the movie asks why a corporation shouldn’t grow richer by any means possible. That is, after all, what the stock holders want. But how can that happen when other people want to preserve nature? Why don’t people all want to be richer at any costs, versus why don’t we all want to put the preservation of nature first? The main conservationist character is betrayed and loses control of his environmental organization to his alter ego, a Huckabees employee and former friend who makes alliances with seemingly uncaring “green” corporations. In the end a troubled peace is brokered when each camp bends a little and the movie concludes as life often does, in confusion rather than resolution. And so I reach the point of why the movie held great promise. It is difficult to turn on radios or TVs without hearing stories about climate change, global warming and the impact they have, or will have, on the planet. Unfortunately, we spend so much time listening to televisions, and radios, and newspapers that we fail to notice the world around ourselves and what our planet has been telling us all along. And sometimes those who do notice are stifled as fear mongers bent on destroying the economy. Economies based on the premise of infinite growth in a finite system. We want to effect a change. But what can be done? Can one person’s actions make a difference? These are questions everyone entertains. As in the movie, if one course of action is followed, opposing forces will eventually be encountered. Why isn’t the road to our salvation clear? Some are convinced the answers are clear. Many factions sound the same alarm, but employ different solutions. Speaking for myself, I enjoy nature and especially birds. But birds won’t continue to exist unless all aspects of their habitat are healthy. To help birds I must save everything birds have depended on for thousands of years. What a daunting task! Wouldn’t it just be easier to party until the whole house of cards comes crashing down? This conundrum lies at the heart of the I Heart Huckabees movie. I applaud the writer of the movie script for making a statement about early 21st century earth. Whether the movie succeeded financially is one thing, but the core of the plot deserves further study. After all, and I speak as just one of many sentient beings, I’m sure we all heart this planet whether we have a voice to say it, or not. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
