BLIND SPOT is a documentary that establishes the inextricable link between the energy we use, the way we run our economy and the effect it has had on our environment. It takes as a starting point the inevitable energy depletion scenario know as Peak Oil to inform us that by whatever measure of greed, wishful thinking, neglect or ignorance, we are at a crossroad which offers two paths, both with dire consequences. If we continue to burn fossil fuels our ecology will collapse and if we don’t, our economy will. Either path we choose to take will have a profound effect on our way of life.
While climate change may have been catapulted from a fringe issue to a mainstream one, the same is not yet true for peak oil. What does it take to drag these tough topics into full public view? The glaring light of a movie camera seems quite effective. Of course, just as certain fictional film styles are not to everyone’s taste, issue documentaries have their critics too. One cheeky writer, reviewing The Age of Stupid, recently asked: “Is it climate change or eco-films that we need saving from?” Now, whether or not you enjoy watching celebrities like Al Gore or listening to a parade of experts, the genre is getting hot for a reason: a growing number of well-informed people from various disciplines want us all to face up to some proven inconvenient truths. In the case of Blind Spot, the subject of this review, the hard fact presented is that when (not if) peak oil happens, “it will change virtually everything about how we live in the modern world.” The interesting twist to this documentary is that the psychological aspects of how we got here are also brought to light. The film shows how we have been so conditioned by a society centered on an oil-based economic system that we are now simply creatures of habit, constantly consuming while ignoring the implications, which we relegate to a dark corner of our mind.
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