Elemental as mythic and existential parable
pp. 155-170
in: Rayson Alex (ed), Ecodocumentaries, Berlin, Springer, 2016Abstract
Shot in direct cinema style, the documentary Elemental follows the personal stories of three very different activists in their respective fights against ecological destruction. Rajendra Singh is an Indian who embarks on a pilgrimage along the Ganges River, raising the consciousness of villagers to respect the sacredness of the river. Eriel Deranger is a young mother of the Dene tribe who campaigns against the Alberta Tar Sands to protect her people from threats to their health. Australian inventor Jay Harman seeks to create innovative nature-based technologies intended to mitigate climate change. This essay interprets the film and its protagonists through the window of three intellectual visions: Joseph Campbell's mythical hero's journey, as described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the nature-based religious historicism of Mircea Eliade, and the themes of alienation, individualism, and the absurdity of life and death as developed by important philosophers of Existentialism.
