A FELLED OLD TREE IN WE ARE GUARDIANS

CHELSEA GREENE, ROB GROBMAN, EDIVAN GUAJAJARA: WE ARE GUARDIANS (2023)

Burning the lungs of the planet: does the environmnet have a chance?

The documentary produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, We Are Guardians, "tracks the constant conflict" between "the ecological and spiritual significance" of this "crucial section of Brazil" (the Amazonian forest) and the commercial forces that "brazenly invade" to "strip it of its resources," summarizes Christy Lemire, an online film journalist writing for RogerEbert.com, one of the few who seem to have reviewed this film.

At nearly forty minutes in a magic happens: we learn about the Awà people. There are indigenous of indigenous, an Amazon tribe so hidden even other indigenous people are not in contact with them and have only glipsed them or heard them talking in the distance. (We see a haunting glimpse.). What can we say. Nature, to be protected, must be hidden. To be unspoiled is to be at risk. The Awà do not have the immunities the other indigenos people have, or access to other foods. And their habitat must not be invaded, or they will be gone.

This is a another film with an urgent message about the destruction of the Amazon forest and those who are pledged to protect it, not by submitting useless, unheard petitions, as oneman we see has done for decades, but by fighting and by active involvement in politics. This is perhaps the most powerful film on this subject that I have so far seen. Each subsequent film is more disturbing and more urgent because the forest is disappearing more rapidly. The cutting down of the 300-year-old or even 500-yerr-old trees, several of which we see, is indescribably disturbing. It's sort of like in environmentl terms what it would be like to see a film of people taking out a Rembrandt or a Vermeer and buning it.

Maybe to the average human being the Remdrandt or the Vermeeer is more valuable, but she would be wrong. The great tree is a very special creation of Mother Nature, and necessary to the survival of the earth and every being on it.

There are many elements a film like this has to show. Its home base is the indigenous people who are most immediately affected, their habitat shattered. But the rain forest produces rain, it's pointed out, and this process affects not only the climate of Brazil, but the climate of the whole planet. Amazzonia, as the Brazillians call it, is one of the earth's most crucial areas of land for the climate. And I just found online an article, "Scientists name most impoprtant laces on earth we must save in order to prevent climate catastrophe."
The author, shirin Ali, says, "new research has found that if tropical forests and peatlands around the world are destroyed because of climate change, the damage could be irrcoverable."

In the Amazon forest, there are the destroyers on various levels: small loggers, big loggers; small farmers, big frmers; and the political right led at this time by Jair Belsenaro, with a philosophy that environmental destruction is just what we need. Just a little, maybe. Citizens in Brazilia, where the film shows a vast menacing (for pro-environment peole) gathering in the street of militant Bolssenaro supportors, comfort themselves with the idea that just slightly destroyng the lungs of the planet is okay. Later - this is 2022 - we see an indegenous group on the edge of the forest cheerithe news that Lula da Silva, Bolsenaro's opponent, has won election again. Lula da Silva wants to save the Amazon forest. It's a priority for him. And earlier we see several indigenous people, Marçal Guajajara and Puyr Tembé, a fighter and a politician. The politician speaks of how they must establish a party within the parliament.

As before the renegade logger is covered, his pathos and his ignorance. Valdir Duarte is poor, bairly can afford shoes, says there are no jobs. We see him visiting his family, whom he sees only a few days a month, because he is so busy inS the forest, cutting it down. These people have virtually no education. So we can see on one level the environmental destruction is the fruit of an inadequate social safety net. Is saving the plaanet a luxury? You could say so, perhaps. Similarly a group of indigenous people confront small time poachers in a small boat who have illegally gathered açaí berries for profit and beg to be allowed to keep it, becausse they are poor. The indigenous people let them keep it, this time.

Snall financial time protectors of the forest by investment are those who have bought up large swaths of forest to create sanctuary, and Tedeu Fernandes is such a one: but the illegal loggers are eating away at his land. He points out an entire village with a sawmill that has grown up on privately owned land. In his acceptance speech, Lula da Silva announces a return of Brazil to "its role in the fight against the climate crisis." He speaks of "zero deforestation of the Amazon forest": he's a politician so it's his goal, but he and Belsenaro are opposites.

In between is agribusiness, though, whose lobby Bruno Bassi, a Brazilian investigative journalist introduced here, points out, is still very powerful, a political realisty overriding presidential elections. Abd then three is a violent attack on the capital builsings in Brazilia on January 8th, paralleling the January 6 rampage on Washington, and these acts, Bassi says, were "directly planned and financed" by agribusiness. The whole population has to take up this cause.

Can it happen? We can only hope so. The film ends with the sweet-faced indigenousman who rams and plants with his lovely chhildren and says he is doing it for them, for future generations, and for everyone. for the uncontacted people, for the world." "We are rain," he goes on, in a lovely speech that caps this fine film, "we are water, we are wind. Animals, forest, we are all this. Somos guardiões," WE are GUARDIANS. if any short documentary might convert you to the cause of the rain forest, this is it. I was moved to remember what was a game-changing film for me, John Boorman's The Emerald Forest.

We Are Guardians, 85 mins., premiered at Montreal (Hot Docs), showing also at São Paulo, Raindance (UK), Montclair, Santa Barbara, St. Louis, Rio. It opened limited Jun. 6, 2025.


A BAND OF PROTECTORS IN WE ARE GUARDIANSW