Directed by Tiffany Shlain
When I sat down to watch Tiffany Shlain’s Connected, I expected a film about the hazards of our cultural addiction to technology, and the highly relatable first few minutes reinforced that impression.
However, I should have paid more attention to the subtitle. Shlain states that her film is about what it means to be connected in the 21st century, but it is at least as much about her personal connection to her father, an author and brain surgeon who died of brain cancer in 2009.
The film presents other connections over nearly a century in time and several continents—connections between human behavior and nature, connections with her unborn child, and connections of body parts to one another—but primarily we’re torn between family home movies (some archival) and important environmental issues, including China’s eradication of the locust-eating sparrow, leading to starvation for millions; the gyres, islands of floating plastic detritus that comprise the largest man-made structure in the world; and the demise of the honeybee.
We do get to the technology of connections in the last quarter of the film, but it’s not enough to web the entire film. Connected has endearing elements and plenty of truth, but is somewhat connected in so many directions that it leaves the viewer feeling deeply connected nowhere—exactly the opposite of the film’s message. It’s a noble effort but it’s just too difficult to do justice to the history of the modern world, the environmental crisis, the functioning of the brain and technology, and a personal memoir and eulogy in 80 minutes.
—Abigail Lewis
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1 Comment
Hello
An English beekeeper has found the answer to stop honeybees dying needlessly.
Look at the facts re honeybees versus pesticides;
France banned neo-nicotinoids in 2008 and yet the honeybee decline continues.
Laborotary tests were overdosed with pesticides, however an opinion was formulated so an assumption was made to what is happening in the wild.
When field tests were done it was found to be inconclusive.
Pollen tested from beehives near to neo-nic`s, only a millionth of a millionth was found on a pollen grain, this is not enough to give any honeybee an upset stomach rather than kill 80,000 honeybees in my colonies
If it was neo-nic`s it would be local, within 2 miles, to that area where it is grown, not widespread across continents.
My colonies are by and where pesticides are used and yet my honeybee colonies are NOT dying.
The paracitic varroa mite is the key reason for the honeybee demise.
There is one other phenomena that kills or saves honeybees but allow the honeybee to control varroa mites.
I have that answer. It has taken over 20 years of my 33 years beekeeping career to find.
John Harding
harding@clavies.freeserve.co.uk