Jan 7, 2010

No Impact Man had No Impact on Me.

Sometimes people do stuff that makes me go... really? Is this totally necessary? Let's explore the wonderful world of a little documentary I saw while sick as a dog this week: No Impact Man. (Oh yes, I almost died, dammit. I saw the light. Nothing there, but that is another post)

What seemed like a genius idea for some strange reason just felt a little flat for me. The basics: some dude in Manhattan decides to go completely off the grid. His no impact zone means:

1) No electricity. No heat. No appliances of any kind.

2) No food that isn't organic and local (in this case, only New York food.)

3) No coffee. (WTF?)

4) No makeup, creams or even bought shampoo for the wife. (WHAT?)

5) No electronic/gas transportation.

6) No elevators.

7) No meat, no fish (IS THIS GUY NUTS?).

8) Watch the trailer to see the whole list. It's about as fucked up as you can imagine.

Oh and by the way, let me tell you that this man decided to include his wife and his amazingly cute little girl in this experiment.

Ok so what happened for me? I ended up being not inspired that much. I mean... Yes, I know mankind sucks and has been fucking the environment for quite a while now, but this is taking it to eleven. It may be a little bit drastic, just to prove a point, you know?

Suddenly the "coverage of the coverage" that he had while making this experience killed the idea, at least for me. I know people would end up noticing his plan, but this seemed like a-movie-about-a-dude-who-did-something-that-was-going-to-be-a-movie-anyhow instead of truly just an experiment. I don't know how to explain this... shit. Um. It seemed a little gimmicky. And the fact that the movie ended and we didn't get to see how much he truly not-impacted... Um... Yeah. Loose ends.

Anyways, there is cool things to take away from it anyways. Being No Impact is hard. Very hard. And tiresome. And cool. And healthy. And interesting. And weird for a little kid. And weird for your friends... By making his life sans tv and limiting his travel options, for some reason he now had more time with his family. The days ended up being longer and the evenings much more fun. Go figure.

I have mixed feelings about this one, but I would still recommend it for those of you out there who really love documentaries like I do. It's now available in Netflix and also On-Demand via Cable.

Enjoy!

3 comments:

RestrictionsApply said...

Does this guy work? How does he pay for that apt. in Manhattan?

Me said...

That's my point! The Blog-turned-Million-Dollar-Idea paid for the apartment, didn't it?

Rent it and tell me what you think, man. Maybe I'm just wrong...

Joker said...

I'd seen the trailer for this and always seemed to think this guy is doing this to get famous more than to live a better life. I agree with this is too gimmicky but hey, maybe the crazy ass shit did have an impact on his life and maybe there are several lessons we can take from this, namely living a hell of a lot healthier and not being such a crap junkie. If you see my room, then yeah, I have a pretty negative impact just with my CD collection alone, but when's the last time you heard of someone picking up shit off the street to throw it away that wasn't theirs? So I think I have a slight upperhand in the giving a shit department namely because:

A, I'm not going to make a documentary about me picking up random garbage and trying to clean up a bit for the rest of the pigs in this world and

B, I'm not going to take it to eleven to just make a point.

People have made it abundantly clear that they don't care about themselves or the planet. They hover in a carpe diem of not giving a shit and end up consuming, polluting, and wasting more than what should be allowed by law.

Will still try and pick this up once I get my NetFlix account with Mrs. Joker and I'll give you my full thoughts.

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