Extremophiles
2023 · 10m · USA
Directed by Leah Shore
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, provocative
An environmental documentary exploring pollution through a presentation of hazardous Brooklyn sites including the Gowanus Canal. Two performers in matching grey suits strike poses amid danger zones seeping with raw sewage, leaked oil, and contaminated soil.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Dance choreography in front of toxic waste sites: this is what environmental docs should look like instead of another drone shot of melting glaciers. Leah Shore understands that the planet is dying with style.
Synchronized grey-suited posers performing at toxic Brooklyn hot spots — Shore stages environmental polemic as deadpan choreography, which is the move. The Gowanus as proscenium is exactly the right kind of wrong.
Synchronized grey-suited performers striking poses at toxic Brooklyn hot spots like Gowanus Canal — the deadpan dance-doc collision is an inspired delivery system for environmental rage. Leah Shore does this register well.