The Alberta tar sands are easily the most controversial natural resource in the country, providing filmmaker Peter Mettler with the focus for his latest conceptual documentary. Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands is full of the stunning imagery one has come to expect from Mettler, but what is perhaps most incredible about the film is the way in which he conveys so much with so little conventional voiceover narration. True to his style, this auteur lets the images speak for themselves.
The spat over the sands is an epic one. Proponents point to massive profits that may be gained from the oil-rich project, while detractors suggest that the process of extracting and refining the oil will have a devastating long-term environmental impact. Mettler's vision certainly leads us to question how clean such a project could ever really be, and he manages, through a series of sweeping shots, to indicate just how mammoth the tar sands are. While Mettler's perspective is never in question – this film was produced by Greenpeace Canada, after all – what's striking is his ability to capture images that are at once shocking in their perverse beauty and utterly horrifying in their implications. As he takes us from the abstract to the real, we realize the true nature of these visuals: what initially appears to be a beautiful series of fluid lines is in fact the ooze and flow of dire toxic pollution.
While this is clearly an opinionated doc with an environmental bent, it is also most distinctly a Peter Mettler film. As he repeatedly casts his lens over the tar sands, he reminds us of the undeniable power and responsibility inherent in capturing an image. Petropolis makes for one of those very rare experiences: an aesthetically beautiful film that also packs a social conscience.
Matthew Hays
Co-presented with Short Cuts Canada
Peter Mettler was born in Toronto and studied film and photography at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute (now Ryerson University). In 1986 he founded his Toronto-based production company, Grimthorpe Films. In 2006 he was honoured in the Festival's Canadian Retrospective programme. A photographer and media artist, his filmography includes
Scissere (82),
Eastern Avenue (85),
The Top of His Head (89),
Tectonic Plates (92),
Picture of Light (94),
Balifilm (97),
Gambling, Gods and LSD (02) and
Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands (09).
For its first screening, Petropolis will be followed by an extended discussion about the issues surrounding the tar sands project. The participants will include filmmaker Peter Mettler and writer Andrew Nikforuk (who provided much of the research on which the film is based), as well as various special guests.