thenationofartists.com

First printed at www.movingpicturesnetwork.com

Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(from the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival)

Directed by: Risteard Ó Domhnaill
Starring: Pat O’Donnell, Monika Muller, Willie Carduff, P.J. Moran

Risteard Ó Domhnaill constructs a documentary that spans the beauties of the Irish landscape and then dives into the violence willing to be endured by local citizens fighting to prevent the possible compromise of their countryside, lives and lifestyles.

Winner of the Best Documentary Award at the 2010 Galway Film Fleadh, “The Pipe” captures the characters of Rossport as they fight a giant oil company’s moves to push a potentially volatile raw natural gas pipeline through common lands and under Rossport farms to a proposed inland processing plant. With no initial consents granted to the company to impose their pipeline on the landowners, the community’s members took it upon themselves to stand firm against Shell, willing to sacrifice their health and liberty to draw attention to a cause that could have been carried out by the corporate giant swiftly in the night.

Although the corporate mouthpieces offered the town’s workers short-term prosperity from jobs created by the business, the locals maintain a singularity of vision that their own multi-generational industries and ways of life would be jeopardized by this relatively transient opportunity.

With the support of parish priests serving the depressed local community, the protesters endure beatings and brutal force as they’re pushed to the side of the road by their own police, whose actions on behalf of the corporate interests and against their fellow townsfolk are nothing short of appalling.

With the police enforcing the rights of the corporation and appeals to governmental bodies falling on deaf ears, it’s easy to hear the frustrations of the filmmakers. However, produced without the participation of, nor any sort of official response from, its protagonist Shell Oil (Royal Dutch Shell plc), the documentary remains lop-sided, the sense of drama coming from the internal machinations of the town rather than a larger battle.

By remaining local, the film provides an important analysis of a town under siege. However, without any official word from Shell or a competitor as to the reasons for this project, nor any talk by Shell or others as to the future of similar projects, the documentary seems untethered. It has the effect of failing to provide global context for the project, and audiences will lack a true appreciation for the money at stake; whether the gas project is a safer or cheaper alternative to oil; whether it would better anyone, anywhere; and whether other communities around the world have been affected by similar projects.

The situation portrayed in “The Pipe” is another example of corporations engaging in willful destruction of public property in defiance of local laws, common sense and the common good. That companies are able to overpower local governments and manipulate the local resources to act against their own communities is frustrating and gut-wrenchingly sickening. At one point, even the country’s navy accompanies the Shell tanker on its allegedly illegal mission while the local police accompany the Shell earthmovers.

Globalization has ceded unthinkable powers to corporations the world over. The loss leaves individuals, in many instances, with little self-respect as they lose their past and present to the goals of synergies and efficiencies. Most communities don’t have the strength to fight, and the commercial interests keep a step ahead of any true measure of risks and consequences.

With the demise of once-heralded newspapers and the popularizing of our polarized nightly news, documentary film has taken the place of investigative news. “The Pipe’s” subject is very much a live issue, and with the documentary’s presence, there are hopes that this travesty will make waves in the marketplace, or at least ruffle the Irish governmental ranks.