Director: Louie Psihoyos
Distibutor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 88 minutes
Racing Extinction (DVD) – Documentary Review
There’s no point in ignoring the fact that we, as a species, are slowly destroying the ground that runs beneath our feet. We are quickly decimating forest to create new industry zones, we lock up animals in cages and fill them with antibiotics and hormones forcing them to mature quicker, we are slowly destroying all of the life forms that swim majestically in our sea, be it by overfishing or the fact that we are making the oceans themselves more acidic. While we all know of this, or at least most of us, we simply don’t care, or think someone else will solve these problems or that it’s all just part of a scheme to let environmentalists gain more power. Racing Extinction shows us that we don’t have to give up on all of our habits, but changing only one thing at a time might already change the world.
It’s hard to describe Racing Extinction as it handles different topics, but not all in an orderly fashion, thus sometimes combining these topics altogether or come back to one at a later period. Mostly the documentary will give a better insight into what is happening with stingrays and sharks, mainly in the Asian countries, which often kill these animals because they believe that some of their parts (fins, gills) have healing properties. In many areas people know they are doing things that are deemed ‘wrong’, but either simply don’t care or they think it’s their only source of income. The latter may be true in some cases, but even then, the population realizes that in the near future even this source of income may either be forbidden or simply go extinct, because of the ever-growing population of these areas.
Other than that, you’ll also get some information about global warming, methane due to the overpopulation of cows and other animals that are being bred for consumption (apparently they fart and poop too much), and the acidification of our oceans, which are slowly killing all of the smaller life forms that dwell in this vast part of our planet. All of that being said, perhaps the most crucial, emotional aspect of this documentary is when a bit of information is presented about PhotoArk, an initiative that photographs the last specimens of certain species, which are only viable in captivity nowadays. When they suddenly drop you with the fact that one of the beautiful frogs they showed you is actually the very last of its kind, it makes you rather ashamed, quiet and angry, all at the same time.
The narrative of Racing Extinction is brought by the hands of various experts, but everything is done in a fairly calm fashion and by pleasant people. Not only do they throw in factual matter, most of it comes out of personal experience, or by actual undercover footage, which shows that these people truly have experience. You will follow the cast on several undercover operations, even some in which they have to toss aside their principles to come across as convincible, which clearly affected them when they talk about it afterwards.
Conclusion
Even though Racing Extinction doesn’t throw that many new facts into the open, we often run around pretending things aren’t as bad as they might seem. Well, they are and it’s time people get properly informed. While this documentary avoids too explicit images and footage, which not always hit their mark, it does a formidable job thanks to the visuals used and the rather emotional ‘storytelling’. If you want to learn more, or expand your knowledge of what is happening to our one and only blue planet, this one will surely get you thinking.
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