Film and Tackling Socio-Political Issues

The scene opens to an aerial shot of a city. Modern, but almost barren. Untended. As we pull into the city, we see a few cars, but no people are on the streets. We are in a car, and driving is a man. The rest of his seats are occupied with bags of what seems to be garbage. He gets to a forest, turns off his car, and takes his bags. He is hurriedly walking through the trees, and finally he gets to a house. It is small, the windows are barricaded. He kicks the door softly three times and then knocks. We hear locks and the door opens. He walks in and there is his family; a wife and son.The son’s chest is shown with red splotches all over it. They all go down to the basement, with a separate door of locks. Below is a huge homemade filtration system that the father adds his garbage bags to.

The above description is just the beginning of the film that I would create to address a local, and national, socio-political issue. The Flint Water Crisis, which has been taking place for nearly 4 years, is the inspiration of what I want to film. The main focus of the dystopian like film being a family that is trapped and trying to survive in a city that is being singularly affected by a craze inducing disease that is infecting people through the water. I wish to address the clear disregard the nation has for a small midwestern city that is being poisoned by their own government.

I would address the branding and financial gains that big companies and politicians get by having this crisis prolonged. This is referring to the Governor Snyder’s chief of staff’s wife being the spokesperson for Nestle Michigan. Nestle pumps 200 gallons of clean water from Michigan a day, and it comes directly out of the pockets of people in Flint. Especially when Nestle’s Ice Mountain water is sold to Flint so that they can bathe, drink, cook, and everything else they need water for.

I would also address the nation’s disregard for Flint’s situation by showing this family, this community, going through this hell alone. They have access to the outside world, but they are trapped in a place where they are already being forgotten. Flint has been used as target practice by our, American, military on top of having water they can not use. No one bothers with these stories, and I found the fact that this small city is so disregarded that bombs and explosives can be dropped in their abandoned neighborhoods, and the rest of the nation remains ignorant to be a sort of dark irony. I feel a film, a medium that is so easily accessible and something people want to engage with is the best way to make them see. Even more so than a bomb.

I feel strongly about this issue because it is so close to home. Toledo, Ohio is a midwestern city, and we have had water contaminant issues in the past. To be without one of the most essential elements of life is terrible, but to know that it could have been prevented makes it all the worse. The government officials knew the risks, and switched them from a system that worked perfectly fine for them, to one that would cost them less money. Flint, Michigan should geographically never not have clean water, being next to Lake Huron, where they use to get their water from. Therefore, if it can happen to them it can happen to anyone.

The fact that it can happen to anyone is why people, nationally, should care. If your government will not help you what can you do? Leave? Not even that is possible in Flint anymore, because their houses will not sell. No one is going to buy a house in a city where they know they can not have water. They are trapped in their city with no clean water, and the system working against them. This fact specifically inspires the way I want the space, the city, to feel. It is barren, there are people there, but they are stuck. This issue was such an uproar a couple years ago, and now people do not think about it. These people are fellow Americans and they do not have fresh water to drink. It feels as if they are a third world country that we see on infomercials asking for 50 cents a day, and that is unacceptable.

My philosophical approach to using this film to address the Flint Water crisis is by approaching the nature of knowledge, self truths, and reality as a whole. I want to do this by showing this family and seeing their struggle in a way that seems outside of reality, but somehow still relatable. Similar to Touki Bouki (Mambety, 1973) or Black God, White Devil (Rocha, 1964) I want to explore a world that seems a bit more dream-like, but not completely separate from our own world. To see a heightened version of the real life Flint, and to show how people survive in these situations.

In the film there will be several calls to political figures like Governor Snyder, big name companies like Nestle, the waves of sympathy from their own American people and back to turning blind eyes. It makes the depictions of the people and the space more alarming, because at that point it feels close to home. It is similar to how Evian water was used in Xala (Sembene, 1975) to illustrate corruption in the main character. These elements support the philosophical aspects by creating a connection and sense of reality in the audience’s brains. This causes a self reflection within the audience that exposes the truths and asks questions; now that you know and are faced with this truth, what part have you played?

The formal approach I want to use is integrated with the philosophical approach that I see for this film. I want it to be a heightened reality, and initially that is the type of concept that engages a Western audience, which is who the film is intended. However, throughout the film, showing these people who are trapped and fending for themselves in what will become an all too realistic world will be where I “imperfect” the form most.

I would explore the use of narrative mixed with experimental form the way that Mambety and Rocha do in their films. My reasoning for this is simply to enhance that sense of a dream-like state, and really call attention to the areas in which we are “sleeping.” For example adding uncomfortability to the audience the way that The Cloud Capped Star (Ghatak, 1960) did in it’s sound editing or even with certain cuts. Ways I would incorporate this in my film would be by cutting in real footage or press addresses into the narrative. Another way is while we see a close up of someone being sick, exaggerated red rashes, or the terror that will be the water in the film, there would be fast cuts and audio of beautiful water being pumped into Nestle tanks. Perhaps even vice versa. The formalistic approach of creating comfortable patterns, and bringing in waves of discomfort, is the most effective way to engage the audience in the story and still making them aware of the discomfort of Flint’s very real situation.

The film as a media form can have the impact that bombs and live explosives have on the masses. I intend for this film to be louder than the explosions we have ignored, through putting it in our faces. Through taking something with familiar beats like a dystopian film, and cutting in real, current, footage of our own president making a comment that dances around the issue that was presented in such an alternate way is effective in landing “bombs” in the minds of the audience. By taking what we thought couldn’t be us and making it real, it is something that good or bad will resonate with the audience.

Consequently, these film forms do not always integrate well with mainstream audiences and even some critics. Therefore, a potential downfall is that the elements of discomfort or “realness” will not connect with every viewer and they will not watch it to know the message behind it. However, this is a common theme among Third Cinema films around the world. I believe the comfortable part of the narrative, a family in survival mode and navigating the space they are trapped in, will be able to engage the average viewer’s attention enough that the avant garde elements will not make them leave the theatre.

The outcome that I want to see from this film is affect Americans by making them more aware. Not only self gazing, which is where the process starts, but looking in our own backyards. Seeing that we have people who are just like us who are being poisoned, disregarded, and used by our government and us as well. I want it to inspire people to research and pay attention to their local council as much as they do the president. In gazing at themselves, they can shift it to Flint, and to holding people accountable. If Flint can make it out of their rut based on being gazed upon by the nation through film, that would be ideal. I want people to make connections and see the chains that create these situations and hopefully people, like Governor Snyder and others, will not be put in office as lightly.