THE MAGNITUDE OF ALL THINGS IS IN THE VOICE

Canadian Director Jennifer Abbott tells it like it is on the screen.

Greta Thunberg in The Magnitude of All Things

The approach of director Jennifer Abbott’s film The Magnitude of All Things screening at this year’s Planet in Focus Film Festival in Toronto is different buy yet impactful.  Rather than showing consistent grim and dreadful images of the environmental destruction of our planet, Jennifer Abbott focuses on more of the dialogue of her subjects and what they have to say.  Her main focus of the film is her relationship with her sister Saille who is battling cancer.  It’s an emotional journey where Jennifer draws up memories of her childhood with her sister.  She parallels Saille’s last moments to that of this planet seen through the eyes of Jennifer Abbott’s subjects who are from different walks of life and places.

You can tell that Jennifer had a close relationship with her sister especially when they were younger and how Saille meant a lot to her.  Tara Samuels plays the older Saille who is stricken by cancer in her last moments with her last thoughts.  Some significant thoughts come from her soliloquy of enjoying the moment and not looking at what is ahead.  Her thoughts are like many of us who feel the end is near or that it has already begun and the grief and recovery is what we are going through.  The beauty of Saille’s thoughts is her acceptance that her world will never be the way it was and that another world is ahead of her in which we all fear and can’t accept.

Anote Tong in The Magnitude of Things

Acceptance is what Anote Tong had to do when he analyzed the Republic of Kiribati when he was the President.  Having made an appearance at Hot Docs in 2018 for the film Anote’s Ark,  the former President of Kiribati knew that climate change was destroying his country and that in the future it would be underwater.  In the Magnitude of All Things, he stresses that the ”storm is coming, ” which reminds and horrifies the audience that something as epic as Noah’s Ark was coming to the world and Kiribati.  It sounds like a warning and a prophecy but the world is still ingrained where science and technology are highlighted to be a saviour in all our doings.

What creeps us out the most here on FERNTV is when a custodian of Wonnarua, Australia by the name of Kevin Taggart speaks.  After going through the catastrophic Australian fires, Kevin Taggart spoke of how much climate change is changing the world. Aside from the fires and hurricanes or other elements that the planet is throwing us, he does mention disease and outbreak.  The Magnitude of All Things must have filmed before the COVID-19 pandemic that we are experiencing now but it is frightening that he saw this coming as well.  To think that this pandemic has nothing to do with climate change is silly now that we are deep in it but was it because many of us did not have a voice?

Greta Thunberg had something interesting to say in this documentary about being in school. Her teacher said to Greta that she was once silent all the time.  When she had the courage to have a voice that was to be heard, it would make a difference.   The rest is history as Greta Thunberg has grown to be the most iconic climate change activist at such a young age.   The once silent student finally understood that she herself can make a change and become the voice of reason when it comes to climate change attracting many followers to her mission.

This ought to be a lesson for all of us who have been silenced long enough during these unprecedented times.  It’s time for all of us not just some of us to use our voices as a means of action and to teach those who do not have a voice.  The Magnitude of All Things is about the audience finding all those meaningful things that Jennifer Abbott’s subjects have to say and to use that and relay it to others through our own means of messaging.  It’s similar to the Indigneous method of storytelling which allows their community to sustain their identity and future.  Ironically, our voice has been there for all of us but we have been using it in a way we thought would do us a lot of good.  Fortunately, Jennifer Abbott has shown us through this film that our voice needs a lot of work.

www.themagnitudeofallthings.com