DIRECTED BY: OLIVER HODGE
THIS entertaining and informative eco-themed documentary explores maverick US architect Michael Reynolds's ongoing struggle to make entirely sustainable living a reality. For 35 years, he's been designi
ng and creating affordable, off-the-grid housing in the New Mexico desert using recycled junk and innovative heating solutions.
Trial-and-error experimentation has been his guiding principle, but this has also brought him into conflict with the powers-that-be, whose collective desire for standardised, safely regulated housing far outstrips any interest in saving the planet. After establishing the idyllic nature of Reynolds's life-style choice, the film picks up his story as the authorities try to shut him down, forcing him to become involved in a long and complicated effort to get the law changed to allow him to continue his planet-saving experiment. Interrupted by a trip to tsunami-ravaged India where his designs are put to practical, life-saving use, the film evolves into a worthwhile account of how ill-equipped the filibustering US political system is to deal with the impending threat of global warming. That may make it sound like another po-faced polemic, but Reynolds is good company to be around and his work has a ramshackle romantic appeal to it that is hard to resist.
• Selected release: Filmhouse, Edinburgh, from today, Glasgow Film Theatre, from 18 July
