Updated Note: This video linked below is no longer available on You Tube, but should be available for downloading on the film’s website linked below. This main page for the information below and the links for the film were taken from the film’s page, featured on Aljezeera.
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An extraordinary visual essay about deforestation in Indonesia as experienced through the eyes of a dying orangutan called Green, whose habitat has been totally destroyed. This story is told entirely without words.
Green: Death of the Forests
A visual essay about the impact of deforestation in Indonesia as seen through the eyes of a dying orangutan.
A visual essay about deforestation in Indonesia as experienced by a dying orangutan whose habitat has been destroyed.
This extraordinary visual essay, told with no human commentary at all, explores the impact of deforestation and the exploitation of natural resources in Indonesia from the point of view of a dying orangutan called Green.
Stunning images of the natural world and its biodiversity are counter-pointed with scenes of their destruction and the resulting cruelty to animals.
The film takes viewers on an emotional journey, following Green’s final days and revealing the devastating impact of logging, land-clearing and palm oil plantations.
Filmmaker’s view
By Patrick Rouxel
In 1991, after dropping out of medical school in Paris, I read Comparative Literature at the Sorbonne. Later I found a poorly-paid job in a production company for television commercials where I discovered digital special effects and went on to become a freelance post-production supervisor for feature films. In 2002, I was leading a comfortable life in Paris where I was never out of work, but I felt that something was wrong.
My mid-life crisis awoke a boyish desire to be out in the wild observing wildlife. I bought myself a camera (Sony PD 100) and left for Indonesia for three months for my first filmmaking experience. I was startled by the extent of the forest destruction I saw around me and decided to make films on conservation.
A visual essay about deforestation in Indonesia as experienced by a dying orangutan whose habitat has been destroyed.
Once I returned home, I learnt how to use Final Cut Pro and edited my first film Tears of Wood, a 26-minute film on the Indonesian forest and its destruction from the perspective of a big, male orangutan. I continued working as a part-time freelance digital special effects supervisor and returned to Indonesia to make a 52-minute version of that film and called it Losing Tomorrow.
The problem however is that my personal films do not reach a wide audience because broadcasters showed no interest. So for my third production, Green, I decided to make it available for free downloads on the internet and make it copyright-free for public screening. Green went on to win awards; aired on about 10 television channels, downloaded daily and is being used as an educational tool in schools and universities. Green is proof that a low-budget home-made conservation film can reach a relatively wide audience. But of course, this doesn’t always work out well.
I finance my own films by selling raw footage to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or production companies, selling Green to TV stations, inviting online donations, working as a cameraman and by giving talks in schools and workshops. When shooting, I travel alone or with a friend for sound recording. I carry a small camera (now a Canon HXA1) and a tripod. I then do the editing on my laptop and get friends to help me with the post-production. Luckily, the fact that I make films “for a good cause” with no commercial interests draws free professional help.
The story behind Green
When I set off to make Green, I knew I wanted to do another film on deforestation in Indonesia and the plight of the orangutans, but I had no specific story in mind. I had no script. In Indonesia, my friend (a guitar teacher who composes the music for my films) and I spent three weeks in national parks in Sumatra. I filmed everything I found beautiful in the forest, while he did the sound recordings.
After he went back home I continued alone to an orangutan refuge in central Kalimantan. There, in the clinic, I came across an orangutan lying on her back, in a bed with a towel as a blanket, a “Hello Kitty” pillow under her head and intravenous tubing taped to her left leg. The sight startled me, she looked so human.
I was told she had come from the wild (as opposed to captivity), and that she had been rescued a few days earlier from an oil palm plantation where workers had captured her on site. The vet said the orangutan had suffered an intracerebral haemorrhage, which had left her partially paralysed on her left side. That was the reason why she was lying on her back unable to get up. The clinic staff called her Sandra.
I spent the next three weeks by Sandra’s bedside, with my camera. As the days went by, I began thinking that she could become the central character of my new film, but unfortunately nothing much happened in her room. Her condition was stable and she hardly ever moved. There wasn’t much of a story to be told. However, she had all these incredible expressions and it occurred to me that the story could be that of what was going on in her mind. Of course, I had no way of knowing what she could be feeling and thinking, but I could imagine it, I could make it up.
Sometimes she looked relaxed as if thinking of something peaceful (like the forest), sometimes she was stressed, like when she heard the gardener mowing the lawn. Perhaps the sound of the machine reminded her of chainsaws. I quickly saw how, through her expressions and her point of view, I could tell the story of the three main industries destroying the Indonesian rainforest.
When I felt I had enough footage of Sandra, I set off to film what was missing. I went back to Paris a few months later and began editing. With the footage I had, I could come up with a simple story around Sandra: lying on her hospital bed, she would remember how it was in the forest with her baby, how the chainsaws and fire destroyed her home, how she ended up on the last tree still standing and how she was taken to a hospital where she allows herself to die of sorrow because she has lost everything.
Death of an orangutan
Also while in Indonesia, I helped rescue a weak and dehydrated young female orangutan from an oil palm plantation who died in my arms on the way to the clinic. She stopped breathing when I was alone with her. The vet and the driver had gone for a quick dinner, but I stayed in the car holding her like a baby in my arms and whispering to her softly that she had to be strong, that everything was going to be fine, that no one would harm her anymore. Inside the car, all was quiet and peaceful. I could feel her breathing on my stomach. An angel passed and the breathing stopped. She was gone with one last soft heartbeat. I cried and felt so sorry for her. The poor little thing had probably seen her mother shot before her own eyes, had been locked up in a wooden box on the plantation where we found her, and had been left there alone, scared, cold, hungry and thirsty for days or weeks perhaps.
And she was just one of an estimated 5,000 orangutans that die each year due to deforestation. The extinction of the orangutans was happening right here in my arms! With Green, I wanted to make people feel what I had felt. Feel the pain and the sense of guilt. I wanted every viewer to appreciate his or her own part of the responsibility and choose to act accordingly: to stop consuming products made from forest destruction. That is why I decided to have Sandra die at the end of the film. I couldn’t afford to take the risk of having people think “Oh, she lives on, it’s not that bad after all, she’ll just have to get better and adapt to her new environment. I can continue consuming stuff the way I like to”.
While editing Green, my biggest fear was that people wouldn’t “buy” the story I had made up around Sandra. Anyone working closely with orangutans would be able to see that the orangutan in the opening shot and all those in the wild, in the degraded forests or in the oil palm plantations, are all different from one another, and from Sandra. Fortunately, the average viewer doesn’t really pick up on this and goes along with the story. And those who share my sensitivity actually do feel the pain and guilt.
Significant impact
I know that the impact of the film is insignificant regarding the global picture. I know that human greed and indifference will eventually destroy all of Indonesia’s forests, but I still prefer to fight and resist rather than do nothing. I didn’t put any shots of local Dayak people in the nature sequences of the film because these sequences refer to today’s forests, the ones where orangutans and many other species are presently being wiped out to make room for oil palm plantations.
Today in Kalimantan, there is hardly any forest left with both Dayaks and orangutans still living in them. Usually, where there are Dayaks all the orangutans would have long been shot and eaten. It is mostly in the patches of forest where there are no Dayak hunters that one can still find orangutans.
As for the ending credits, I didn’t put the name of big environmental NGOs because at the time of making the film, I didn’t realise how political, deceitful and counter-productive many of them were. I only recently became aware of this with Fabrice Nicolino’s book Qui a tué l’écologie? (Who killed ecology?). I was also hoping these NGOs would use the film as a campaign tool, but I don’t think many did.
I don’t consider Green or any of my other films as documentaries. I see them as poetical films or something equivalent to poetry in literature. Documentaries demand a rigour that I don’t follow. My only rigour is to never have any “mise en scene” nor use special effects other than cleaning or stabilising shots. But I allow myself the odd “cheat” like when the vet in the film says Green. Of course in my rushes, the vet actually says Sandra. I allow myself this, because having the vet say Green seemed to me as the subtlest way of making the viewer understand that the orangutan’s name is Green. And I’m sure that had I called the film Sandra, it wouldn’t have got half the awards it did. Green seemed to me the best possible name for the dying orangutan, as well as the title of the film.
PS: Last I heard of Sandra, she’s still alive but remains half-paralysed in a small cage in the refuge. The managers have requested official permission to euthanise her. It was rejected. I’m told that the Indonesian authorities never allow any euthanasia of orangutans. I suppose this is because the statistics are bad enough as it is.
Click here for more of the filmmaker’s blog.
Click here to visit the film’s website.
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Resources on Palm Oil and its Destruction Impact on Habitat, Animals, and People
Palm oil: the hidden ingredient causing an ecological disaster
Demand for Vegetable Oil Increases Rate of Deforestation
http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/03/demand-vegetable-oil-increases-rate-deforestation/
Borneo Orangutan Survival
Worst Food Additive Ever? It’s in Half of All Foods We Eat and Its Production Destroys Rainforests and Enslaves Children
http://www.alternet.org/food/152848/worst_food_add
Palm Oil Reports
Palm Oil and Habitat Loss
http://animalvoices.ca/2010/09/14/sumatran-orangutan-society/
Palm Oil and Forest Destruction
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/palm-oil
Palm Oil: Cooking the Climate
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/palm-oil_cooking-the-climate/
Palm Oil or Rainforests: You Decide
http://www.care2.com/causes/palm-oil-or-rainforests-you-decide.html
Stop Using Palm Oil: Save Orangutans and Tigers
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/3077934
Say No to Palm Oil
Dont Buy Earth Balance!
http://vegangster.org/2011/11/10/earth-balance-an-earth-imbalance/
GREEN (Palm Oil Deforestation) [Video]
Death of an Orangutan [Green]
Facebook Pages
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Save-the-Orangutan-Stop-using-palm-oil-please/221760306942
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Save-the-Orangutan-Stop-using-palm-oil-please/221760306942
absolutely painful to watch. will share on care2.
Great please share along with the warning on palm oil, I recall there being a good article on palm oil in various products on care2.
a punch in the stomach. speechless. will be carrying with me the memory of his eyes. had no idea of bio diesel’s evilness. thank you for opening another awareness window.
Glad you liked it, it really is moving, what we are doing to the earth and animals, in this case for ridiculous items such as Palm Oil. And tell everyone not to Buy Earth Balance, which has palm oil in it, I need to remember to post a list of common vegan and general items with palm oil in it.
will be looking out for your list. thank you.
Updates with resource links, I have a good one I cant find with very specific ingredients and products listed, should anyone find some good links, please share
There are so many products containing palm oil…….it is staggering!!!
It is — note to all sanctimonious vegans out there who think their lifestyle is non-violent and cruelty free!!
and I’m one of them! had no idea what Earth Balance was – I’ve been in Italy for the past 10 years and before that Northern Europe – but did my refrigerator homework – checked out my French Organic Margarine – third ingredient Palm Oil. and my German Organic mock Cream Cheese? Second ingredient Palm Oil. what’s a vegan with good intentions supposed to do? back to homemade guacamole and hummus…. darn.
It is very common on the US and many ill-informed vegans use it, although consciousness is growning. Palm oil is listed under different names and often not listed at all, so this is part of what we all have to learn. Nor surprised at all you found destroyed rainforests and dead orangutans in your refrigerator.
true. while I was reading the labels I saw the orangutan’s eyes. the power of visual information.
As if we are not murdering and plundering enough, wiping out crucial habitats for oils there are alternatives to, my god could this species be more greedy and insane than it is? don’t answer that please!
totally agree. ignorance is the root of greed and insanity. your work is helping to stop the insanity.
Dr. Best, your name is apt, as you are surely THE BEST!! The species of man is the scourge of this planet. I am ashamed to be a member of that supposedly superior species!
I have always said, and still say, that the Industrial Revolution was, for this planet, the beginning of the end. But I see no end to man’s egotistical greed and indifference; his inhumanity towards the creatures that share the earth, creatures that are far superior to him in all the ways that count.
My God! (and I say that facetiously, for a truly compassionate god would not allow such destruction of his planet!) My heart hurt watching this. Anyone who could watch this and not see the magnitude of man’s destruction, greed, inhumanity and indifference surely does not have a heart residing in his/her body!! If they watch with indifference, no conscience resides in his/her body. If they will not watch because it hurts to do so, no sould resides anywhere in him/her.
I wonder WHEN Mother Nature will realize her mistake and finally exterminate the human species from this planet. Only then will the earth be able to heal the wounds inflicted by this most foul inhabitant.
“We have probed the earth, excavated it, burned it, ripped things from it, buried things in it . . . That does not fit my definition of a good tenant. If we were here on a month-to-month basis, we would have been evicted long ago.” – Rose Elizabeth Bird, Former California Chief Justice.
I admit I’ve been much more diligent in reading labels trying to avoid the obvious animal ingredients. I sort of “knew” about palm oil but never completely made the leap to the actual harm. This video and the facts presented have shamed me into making necessary changes in my buying habits.
Sharing widely – Thank you.
What a sad, sad, movie. If you look on Google earth, in Indonesia, you can see the extent of the destruction, what looks like green forest to begin with, on closer inspection is just row upon row of palm trees grown for oil. Watch out! I bought two jars of nut butter from meridian foods last week, one was made with nuts and sunflower oil, but the other was nuts and palm oil. I will not buy it again.
will share this , thank you for making the film
thanks for the useful info