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Cinema
The necessity of water and time
The dominance of power in society can be illustrated by using a pyramid. People with the possession of real power, we find at the very top and narrowest part. At the bottom, and widest part, we find everything and everyone else. Like the people of Dimock, in the documentary Gasland, they put their trust and faith into the hands of the controlling minority part, thinking that they would act in their best interest. However, in many cases just like theirs, megalomaniacal members of society will go to any lengths to achieve their dreams, even though it might affect the quality of life of today’s population and future generations to come.
In todays modern society people live in close proximity to one another and a small change in the ecosystem can have dramatic consequences. These changes for the worse, can affect both this generation and the next ones to come, as shown in the movies Gasland, Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring. But there are always exceptions, people that go towards the stream, which is evident in the film The Man Who Planted Trees. Time and water are the main motifs in all these films, because over time consequences from people’s actions become inevitable, because time is constant, it never stops and water is a main source for life in general without it we would stop.
The documentary Gasland tells a story about how government officials passed a law about the method of fracking the earths crust to reach the natural gas reserves that lay underneath large parts of the US. In theory, this was a safe and cheap way of producing gas to a growing US market. Over time the population around these production sites experienced contaminated water, which in some cases led to lowered quality of life. The documentary has a main focus on the deliberations between the antagonists, the “oil frackers” and their government supporters, and the protagonists, the victims.
The movie starts with melancholy music and pictures from

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