"How to Blow Up a Pipeline" - Radicalization meets Indie Filmmaking
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is one of the most radical films I’ve ever seen, not particularly surprising though given the team behind it more or less advocates for eco-’terrorism’. This type of story rarely gets tackled mostly because climate change is one of those subjects that causes most people’s eyes to glaze over, so it’s neat to see an indie team pair it with the tension of a heist movie. I went into watching this in pretty staunch disagreement with the perspective of the characters, but I came out the end with a little more insight.
From the opening scene, Pipeline establishes our characters and their motivations. Periodically, flashbacks will contextualize why they’re doing something as risky as this plan. These tend to follow up really tense scenes and climactic moments and it’s an effective method for sure. As with a smaller project like this, a couple characters don’t get full development but we still understand where they’re coming from. Some decent performances all around, but nothing special.
Pipeline’s biggest strength is the tension built through editing and music. Obviously the content of building explosives and pulling off this plan is already tense enough, but the soundtrack puts it on another level. Smart cuts and tight audio design in certain scenes ups the tension even more.
My issues with Pipeline don’t stem from the message at all, but rather how everything ends up. I won’t spoil it, but I found the finality of the plan to be a little underwhelming. The buildup is so tense but the payoff just isn’t all there. A little more risk and complexity in the plan that could have involved some underused characters would have really tightened up this watch.
Despite my gripes with how the end plays out I think How to Blow Up a Pipeline is worth watching simply due to the radical nature of the message. The tense elements work really, really well and it makes the on-the-nose bits work much better than I was expecting. I’ll be curious to see if the indie team tries to tackle another concept like this, production-wise I was pretty impressed.
Loved this article! I have heard of this movie before but never really thought much of it. It definitely seems like a crazy idea for a film and can probably be seen as "dangerous" to some. But I think that's what makes art ART. It can teeter the line from a socially dangerous message to a more thought provoking and insightful message. And at the end of the day it can cause a discussion. More specifically a discussion about our politics. This really shows the power of any form of media can have on the people. Definitely feel more inclined to check this movie out after reading this article!
ReplyDeleteI had not heard of this movie before reading this post. It was not what I expected to say the least. The film does not, according to its title, present a step-by-step instruction manual on how to construct explosives. It does, however, reveal a way by which the activists are able to disrupt the pipeline without incurring the consequences of an oil spill, as if to demonstrate to its audience that one may be both violent and responsible in their demonstrations. While no direct action against key infrastructure has yet been taken, the fact that it has alarmed the FBI speaks much about the potency of its message. I can see how this piece of art could be considered politically influential.
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