Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie

Quite high up on my list of films to see during the festival was Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie (official website here). I have to say, I was disappointed with the film.
David Suzuki is a Canadian icon. We know a lot about him, he has done, and continues to do great work...he seems like a pretty stellar gentleman. Of course, his greatness is the main reason why I wanted to watch the film, but unfortunately, it meant that not much of the movie was new, or more insightful than what I already knew about the man.
Dr. Suzuki recently gave a lecture significantly named "The Legacy". As I watched the documentary, I felt like I had paid to watch a teaser version of the lecture. As we learned from director Sturla Gunnarsson and Dr. Suzuki's Q&A, the documentary was actually made so that the lecture would be the final piece of the puzzle and act as a culminating thread to tie all of the vignettes together. We found out that the lecture was actually being written as the footage of the documentary was filmed and we could see that some of the footage shot for the documentary was actually shown in the backdrop of the lecture.
I still very much respect was Dr. Suzuki does, however, this documentary was disappointing. If I knew nothing about the man, perhaps I would have enjoyed it, but as I've said, I learned nothing new, and for that
reason alone, I was not impressed. This film is getting wide-release and I can see that it would be easy to market and many people will enjoy it, but as a movie to watch during TIFF, an event that I like to feel like I'm privy to something really special and unique, this did not do it for me. I know what Dr. Suzuki's message is, so even the discussion from the Q&A wasn't enthralling. I was happy to see him, you know, be in the same room as him (I'm definitely not immune to getting star struck), but yeah, I've said it all already.
In hopes of being optimistic, I watched this film in the middle of a long day, and really wasn't feeling very well. I dozed off a couple moments (how embarrassing), so maybe I fell asleep for all of the best parts, but I'm doubtful.
I liked An Inconvenient Truth, which was based off an Al Gore lecture, so it can't be the lecture part of it that bothered me. And of course than documentary was also about the environment, so that's not it. I definitely liked Waiting for "Superman", so it's not that this documentary picked a timely issue. I guess this documentary was more of a biography than anything else, and I can't think of something similar off of the top of my head.
So, I would say that I would not recommend paying a large sum to watch this film. When it shows up on CBC, definitely watch it. That's exactly it, this movie belongs as a TV feature documentary on a Sunday night with family, not as as a special TIFF movie.

Also, unrelated, about half of the seats in the theatre were reserved for special guests. That was a little strange. The screening of Waiting for "Superman" also had a large amount of reserved seating much of which was labeled for specific folks, which was different because usually it's just marked "reserved" (I was sitting within arms reach of the one labeled "Gates", and although the seat was filled, it didn't look like the Gates that I thought it would be). I thought that maybe since Dr. Suzuki was involved, there would be a bunch of people attending who were stakeholders in the movie. But half of the theatre seems like a lot. Well, it was. In the end, only six (six!!!) of the seats were filled by special guests. The rest were opened up for attendees who scrambled to get prime seating last minute, and for those who had waited patiently for rush seating. Something about this specific reserved seating bugs me. Almost like the special sponsor seating at the Olympics. Okay, end rant.

- picture courtesy of www.legacy.davidsuzuki.org