In this post we are to write about the film "Crude Awakening". It's about the peak-oil crisis. Though I think they were a little heavy handed with the emotional manipulation through horror film music, they did make some good points. I especially loved the images from the early part of the twentieth century during the oil boom --some in the U.S. and some in Baku. Men were covered in the stuff, splashing in it like children in puddles. It gave a strong sense of wastefulness. Then contrasting those images were images of Baku after the oil ran out. The land was decimated! It looked like a battle field. (Interesting how the destruction humanity inflicts upon the earth always looks like a battlefield. I've often said the same thing about clear-cutting land. The "after" scene always looks like images I've seen of WWI).

I also love all of the old film clips of mid-twentieth century ads about oil and oil products --cars, cosmetics, clothes, gasoline, etc. Though these ads were meant at the time to be pro-oil, they are chilling now. They could be read an entirely different way!

Another thing I found interesting, was that peak oil in Iran was reached in 1978 --around the same time of the Islamic revolution when the Shah had to high-tail it out of there. It's known that the U.S helped to put him in power. I wonder now if it also chose to desert him when the oil supplies ran out. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I have a great deal of respect for Iran and the Iranian people. Neither of the most recent governmental regimes have worked well for them and neither have they been complete failures. Yet, I wonder how much the U.S. (and Britain and France, etc.) has helped to cause the political situation Iran faces now --and all over using them for our own oil agendas.

Favorite quote from the film: As far as I know, They're not makin' a lot of dinosaurs anymore."