Worth: $14.00
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Cast:
Farhana Yamin, Gail Bradbrook, Roger Hallam, Sophie Cowen, Sam Knights, Savannah Lovelock, Alejandra Piazzolla Ramirez
Intro:
… a guaranteed conversation starter.
Directed by first timers, Maia Kenworthy and Elena Sánchez Bello, Rebellion provides a warts-and-all portrait of Extinction Rebellion (XR), the hardcore environmental movement that made headlines in 2019 before a certain pandemic took prominence.
Derided by certain arenas as being no more than hippies or, as one tweet in the doco suggests, the middle-class telling working-class people what to do, Rebellion captures a side to XR’s members that is perhaps not often seen.
The film takes in the thoughts and opinions of several members of XR, but largely focuses on three of the big guns. Farhana Yamin is an environmental lawyer who has worked on several international treaties for decades and joins the protestors after no longer tolerating the inaction by the fossil fuel industry. Supergluing her hands to the steps of Shell’s HQ, she appears to be reinvigorated in her cause.
Then there’s co-founder Roger Hallam and his daughter, Savannah. Hallam is quite possibly the most polarising character within the film. At first, his determination and stubbornness to get XR up and running is understandable to anyone who has uttered that famous idiom about omelettes and eggs. In the movement’s first meetings, he’s up front with those attending; to make a difference they must do stuff that will get them arrested. Hallam’s tenacity clearly rubs people the wrong way, culminating in a standoff between himself and the younger members of XR, including Savannah, who feel like they ae being overlooked.
This is what makes Rebellion engaging. Not for its scenes of infighting, but how the filmmakers acknowledge the good and bad in the group. People of colour within the group call out the ‘white saviour’ undercurrent in XR that, yes, is calling for renewable energy sources, but doesn’t seem to acknowledge how companies source the likes of solar panels and electric cars. Spoiler alert: it involves a fair bit of child labour in poor countries.
It’s easy to pick these moments apart as examples of the left eating themselves, but conversely it highlights a group of people willing to evolve and reassess what they know in order to move ahead stronger.
An informative and brisk trip into the throng of mass protests, Rebellion is a guaranteed conversation starter.
