This Doc’s Horizon Isn't Cloudy

When Clouds Clear

(NR)

originally published April 23, 2008

In the remote forested mountains of Ecuador, a small community is fighting the environmental war on the smallest, most personal of battlefields, their own backyards. Copper is plentiful in them thar hills, and foreign corporations from Japan to Canada want at the precious metal. Guarding this resource is the handful of families who reside in the tiny, rural village of Junín. Armed with walkie-talkies, sticks and a few guns, they battle multinational mining operations, paramilitary mercenaries, the Ecuadoran government, and their own families, many of which have divided over the near-Shakespearean question, “To mine or not to mine?”

Shot with you-are-there clarity and immediacy, When Clouds Clear paints a landscape of the Andes Mountains with the green, blue and brown of self sufficiency, community and resiliency, plus the marring splashes of red violence. The amazing footage of the villagers’ confrontation with the paramilitary security force hired by one of the mining corporations is the single most tense scene of the year-to-date. Yet, the film is dominated by what could be described as little more than home movies depicting day to day life in this northern Ecuadoran hamlet where residents meet for mingas, during which the entire community pitches in to assist one of their own; no remuneration is required beyond the knowledge that their neighbor will do the same for them when asked.

With the heat being generated by environmental documentaries, the directors, Slick and Bernstein, made a sound decision with the topic for their feature debut. Such cynicism does no justice to their clear-headed, clear-hearted perspective as they survey the turbulence capitalism has wreaked on this remote mountainside. Gaining the trust of these insular, rural people must have been difficult, and the ranging freedom granted to their camera and the honesty of each interviewee, especially young guide Robinson Piedra, testifies to the sincerity these young women bring to their endeavor. However, they take for granted their own familiarity with the region and the situation, leaving viewers to struggle a bit with unfamiliar geography and politics. Nonetheless, When Clouds Clear sheds a microscopic light on the environmental struggle most have only viewed through a macro lens.

Drew Wheeler