Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie | Review

The Godfather of Environmentalism Looks To The Future By Glancing Back

Those of us residing outside the Canadian borders have had less exposure to the man, but Dr. David Suzuki is a world renowned Canadian icon, a man who’s Japanese heritage indirectly made him a public bestower of science and a pinnacle of global environmentalism. Now 75 years old, Suzuki is taking time to reflect on his life and his accomplishments with a somber sentimentalism, and coming forth with what he is calling his final lecture that rounds out his career and urgently conveys a plan for future ecological sustainability. His lecture and look back is chronicled in Sturla Gunnarsson’s Force Of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie, a film that beholds a man who always speaks with wisdom, authenticity, and simplicity as if every line were part of a story recounted to his youngest grandchild. It’s a work of observant reflection that gives the stage to Suzuki, letting him guide the film with memories and cautionary warnings.

Suzuki was born in Vancouver in 1936, but a few short years later his family, along with all Canadians of Japanese decent, were rounded up and interned in barbed wire fenced camps under the War Measures Act following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. There he experienced life shaping rejection, both from the white people imprisoning him, and from the other Japanese speaking children, as David and his family only spoke English. As the stigma stuck, this problem followed him after the war, so he found salvation in the swamps near his home. His love of the creatures he found led him to become a published scientist, and later the charismatic host of “The Nature Of Things”, which is now currently in its 51st season of broadcasting. Throughout Canada he is known as The Godfather of Environmentalism for his efforts to promote conservation and for pressuring governments on deforestation policy. Here, he touches on all of these subjects and more.

Weaving Suzuki’s Legacy Lecture with a preparatory journey to places of significance from his past, Gunnarsson sits back and let’s Suzuki tell his own story. They visit Hiroshima where he talks about what happened to his family during the war, pinpointing pivotal memories, like seeing his grandparents for the last time. To add impact, stock wartime footage is tied in nicely when he visits the bombing memorial site. Their next stop is the laboratories in the US where he got his start experimenting with flies, and the small home where he settled down to start a family. The past comes rushing back with the excitement of the projects he was working on, and the obvious pain of the conclusion of his first marriage. The narrative flows flawlessly between his journey and his lecture. His speech often touches on his past allowing intuitive cuts, but it focuses on the massive problems we have ahead of us to correct the damage we’ve inflicted on our planet. The gravity of the subject is given that extra ummph with smartly prolonged cuts following each emotional dispensation. With each, we are left with only Suzuki’s solemn stare and a building lump in our throat.

Force Of Nature is filled with broadly profound wisdom, but it doesn’t feel weighty despite the topics at hand. Suzuki is relaxed, knowing and accepting that he is nearing the end of his life’s journey, and in turn, we are relaxed, anxious only to hear his incoming thoughts. The doc honorably recognizes the importance of a widely admired elder who only wishes to impart his knowledge to the coming generations, and David Suzuki does so here with the utmost grace and dignity.