Berlinger’s ‘Crude’ Spills into First Run

Doc film specialists First Run Features have grabbed Joe Berlinger‘s latest doc which originally spilled over at last January’s Sundance film festival. Berlinger who is best know for his exploration of guilty-until-proven, Salem-witch hunt-ish imprisonment of metal listening youths (Paradise Lost) and later tracking metal band Metallica thru their trials and tribulations (Some Kind of Monster), goes off the beaten track in a style and literal sense with Crude. Variety reports that the doc will receive a theatrical release on Sept. 9 at the IFC, followed by L.A. on Sept. 18.

Not exactly a political or activist type essay documentary film, but more of a travelogue, I couldn’t help but feel that the documentarian was perhaps overwhelmed by the size of the subject matter. With a complex court case that will most likely last somewhere in upwards of the 50+ year range, ultimately it becomes almost impossible to resume what is known as the “Amazon Chernobyl” in less than 120 minutes. Simply put, Crude is one more example of grand scale corporate crimes against humanity and a failure in better judgement. Set in a third world country with a government who is extremely slow to re-act, oil companies simply hire the best of the best in lawyers. Here is the synopsis:

Three years in the making, this is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet. An inside look at the infamous $27 billion case, this is set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking as it examines a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.