Given the nature of the climate debate this is a very topical issue which drives straight at the heart of automobile manufacturers claims to be doing all they can to help the environment. Who Killed the Electric Car? focuses on General Motors and its EV1, the first electric car produced since the early days of automotive transportation. Despite the enormous potential the EV1 represented it was, the movie claims, deliberately sabotaged by its parent company, recalled and scrapped. The blame for this is then presented, reviewed and apportioned with a high degree of accuracy.
I�m not the biggest documentary fan. I think they can be fascinating and great entertainment, but they also represent an enormous responsibility to their creators to produce as truthful a product as possible. Documen-taries are, after all, televisual journalism, and must be held to the highest standards. The tit-for-tat partisan sniping and lies of its biggest proponent, Michael Moore, have damaged the genre considerably, and so it is good to see other filmmakers take up the challenge to produce hard-hitting investigative journalism on topics others would prefer to remain buried.
WKTEC? is by no means perfect. While the topic is interesting Paine struggles to keep his film entertaining, and there were many moments during the screening that I found my mind dozing off. There is little access to information from the other side, bar an interview with a clearly surprised GM spokesman, and Paine has a hard time keeping emotion out of the debate. The very silly mock funeral of the EV1 being one of the most cringeworthy moments in documentary history.
Despite this his information seems mostly accurate, and it does a very good job of uncovering duplicity on the part of GM top brass. After they recalled all of the EV1�s (you could only lease, not buy for some conspiracy-ridden reason) they insisted they would be recycled, only to crush them all a few days later. This is investi-gative journalism of the best kind. The film's attempt at the end to see who was to blame, though clumsily presented, also goes a long way to giving it a more authoritative feel. While the film hammers GM, Paine does not hold back in blaming the consumers as well, a very brave move in a genre known to preach to the converted. Moore could learn a lot from this film. |
