A Future Site ▼

Total Film: The Modern Guide to The Movies

Reviews

The damaging effect of drilling for oil in northern Canada

Mar 16th 2010 By Tom Dawson

Leslie Iwerks’ sobering documentary explores the catastrophic consequences of extracting oil from Canada’s Northern Alberta tar sands, which form an area roughly the size of England.

Narrated by Neve Campbell, Dirty Oil draws on the opinions and observations of scientists, activists, medical doctors and locals, who vividly testify to the environmental damage wreaked by what one talking head calls “the largest and most polluting industrial project on the planet today”.

Eyeing the images of giant craters, bulldozed forests and sludgy lakes – all looking like something out of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker – it’s hard to doubt their word. Disturbing and illuminating.