La belle verte

In following with my previous post, I must also highly, highly, highly recommend "La belle verte". This film is a powerful environmental and social critique. It's not, however, a heavy, finger-pointing piece. Rather, it is humourous and original in the way the story is told.

Arguably the best parts of the film are those which are set in the alien world some of the protagonists comes from. It is a utopia where everyone is equal, eats raw vegetarian food, and lives to be over 200 years old (they get three sets of teeth!). Their days are spent in physical exercice, communal gathering of food and education of one another. They have concerts of silence. As a community, they decide how many babies there will be, distribute the harvests, and send ambassadors to other planets. The story, therefore, mostly takes place when one of their people visits earth.

It's unnecessary to say what happens when the alien (who looks completely human by the way) arrives on earth. All that needs to be said is that it's a very simple and fair criticism of Western society: disconnectedness with others; pollution; going too fast to appreciate the small and countless beauties life affords.

In order for the utopia in "La belle verte" to exist, we would need:
- No individual property
- Communal and inter-generational sharing of food and knowledge
- A disposal of all things non-essential (electronics, cars, huge disjointed cities, and so on)

Basically, we'd have to give a damn about one another. Which is what I believe the message of most prophets boils down to.