ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch

We are in Kenya where tusks are being measured and stacked. This striking image of humankind’s depletion of a natural resource is the first shot in this documentary; its final image is of the same ivory being burned by the government in a bid to curtail the black market. Is there any hope for a last-minute turnaround? In-between these shots, the film circumnavigates the globe and shows us how landscapes have been irrevocably changed and destroyed by humans. These dark places are, at the same time, frighteningly beautiful. Following the ‘Anthropocene’ theory, meaning an era in which humankind has consistently sought to subjugate the earth, the film depicts the momentous transformations that nature is suffering as a result. After Manufactured Landscapes (2006) and Watermark (2013), ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch is the final part of a trilogy in which Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky have set out to document in spectacular images the consequences of humankind’s actions on our planet. Their series of stunning vistas and dramatic sequences unleashes a deep well of emotions.