Hazarding a guess at our planet’s imperiled future, Project Hazmatic: Dangerous Goods, hovers between cataclysmic hymn, ecstatic elegy, and absurd ritual. Clad in bespoke hazmat suits, eco-voyagers cavort through industrial ruin and wild splendor. In a fever dream of climate crisis and toxic onslaught, individual and collective grief transforms.
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Review by Victoria Angelique:
The poetic documentary, PROJECT HAZMAT: DANGEROUS GOODS, is an artistic exploration of the toxic materials used to hurt the climate and people themselves. The narrator’s voice is calm, but still proves a point through the subtle metaphors depicted on screen.
The narrator’s voice proves the point of hazardous materials on the whole environment without ever raising it an octave. The story shows how through the history of the poet that this person has seen devastation in person. She has seen it through her father and through the sites that she has visited in her own life. This isn’t an unbiased person that has watched the news, but someone who has lived it and is begging people to listen from a person with experience.
The metaphors shown on screen also are in contrast with the soothing voice, something that only adds to the film’s artistry. The person on screen begins with wearing caution tape and a red wig, a symbol of the danger that the world is in if we don’t change trajectory. The person switches to a hazmat suit, which suggests it is already too late but we still have the opportunity to clean up the previous messes. The words describing the narrator’s father are bleak, showing what exactly can happen to the human body when the same materials destroying the planet are encountered without the proper equipment for cleaning up.
The film’s most striking visuals don’t come from the person on the screen, but with the objects depicted on screen. The topic about the names of storms is shown as a toy house washed with waves, later the same house is on fire as the mention of other catastrophic events are described. This suggests it is not just that the world is in danger, but it is on fire.
If someone is interested in learning about the effects of climate change without being preached at, the PROJECT HAZMAT: DANGEROUS GOODS would be a great place to start because this film doesn’t preach, yet it still packs a punch with the delivery of describing the events through powerful metaphors.
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