Werner Boote searches the globe to find out the many secrets of plastic in meandering documentary
PLASTIC PLANET (Werner Boote, 2010)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, January 14
212-924-3363
www.firstrunfeatures.com/plasticplanet
www.cinemavillage.com
Declaring this to be “the Plastic Age,” Viennese filmmaker Werner Boote travels the globe in PLASTIC PLANET, seeking answers that are not very easy to come by about the mysterious material. Boote grew up around the plastics boom, his grandfather an early manufacturer of the non-biodegradable synthetic. Boote meets with former president of PlasticsEurope John Taylor, Italian judge and politician Felice Casson, environmental scientist Susan Jobling-Eastwood, Japanese artist Hiroshi Sagae, American biophysicist Scott Belcher, Austrian environmental analyst Kurt Scheidl, European Commission vice president Margot Wallstrom, German plasticization specialist Gunther von Hagens, and others, each of whom has a different relationship with plastic, some citing its many virtues, others emphasizing its myriad dangers. Perhaps the most important thing Boote discovers is the power of the plastics industry in maintaining secrecy over the exact chemicals that go into their products, claiming that the release of such information could ruin their businesses. Thus, people might know the specific ingredients in their food, but they are not privy to what goes into the packaging, and there’s nothing they can do about it. One Chinese press representative almost spills the beans, but the interview is cut short before she can give away any of her company’s secrets. Unfortunately, Boote is not quite as interesting a character as he thinks, and he tries too hard to remain relatively neutral about plastics in general, straddling a line that leaves viewers somewhat disengaged from his personal journey. Although the film does reveal some frightening facts and scary predictions, it lacks a continuous narrative flow, meandering much as Boote does around the world, with some segments filled with confusing or difficult-to-follow scientific data. Ultimately, PLASTIC PLANET wants to be more important than it is, which is a shame, because it had the potential to be so much more.