Film/TV Feb 29, 2012
Windfall: Blowhards Pray for a Time Gone By
by Charles Mudede
I will be direct about this film: I did not like it at all. Why? Because it's about rural people hating on wind turbines, hating on energy generated by wind power (which, by the way, is a form of power generation that's nowhere near anything like blasting the tops of mountains). There are few people in this world I could dislike more than farmers and other country types who see the continuation of their quiet way of life as more important than the loud improvement, advancement, development of their society. True, some people in this doc do see the social importance of wind turbines, but the most passionate and determined folks are squarely against them. They want peace, they want to live like the good old days, they want to retire and raise their barn animals. Unbelievable!
I recall an old lady in Tacoma once telling me that she did not mind the noise of the huge military airplanes approaching or departing McChord Air Force Base because it was "the sound of freedom." As a city person, I do not mind the sound of the light rail or the noisy construction of a public transportation system because it is the sound of democracy. Those wind turbines the country people hate so much are the sound of the future. Get used to it or move out of the way.
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Charles Mudede
Charles Tonderai Mudede, The Stranger's film editor, is a Zimbabwean-born cultural critic, urbanist, filmmaker, college lecturer, and writer. Mudede collaborated with the director Robinson Devor on three films, two of which, Police Beat and Zoo, premiered at Sundance, and one of which, Zoo, screened at Cannes. He has also written for the New York Times, Cinema Scope, Tank Magazine, e-flux, LA Weekly, and C Theory.
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