At the end, there is a slap.
Monumental.
We know all that, of course, but presented like this, we wonder why we are still doing nothing.
Or so little.
Or not enough ...
With his new film “Legacy” - “heritage” in French, the one we have received and the one we will leave - broadcast this Tuesday January 26 at 9:05 pm on M 6, Yann Arthus-Bertrand aims for the shock of beauty and emotion.
Advocating an urgent change in behavior in the face of climate change, he is continuing his work of warning.
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It is a bit of the story of man that he tells us.
A story that started so well, a
success story
that could unfortunately end in bankruptcy ... The 74-year-old photographer and director looks back on humanity.
On how it domesticated planet Earth, how it flourished on its surface and how it is depleting it, consuming it, and going to consume it if left unchecked.
Yangshan Port, a deep-water container terminal, in Hangzhou Bay, Shanghai, China./M 6 / Yann Arthus-Bertrand
He does not content himself with recalling the observation - fairly widely shared today and the proof of which flows daily - he tells the story of the road traveled.
Since the dawn of time.
It's all about energy, that's the common thread of history.
The energy of the sun, of the Earth, it is life, present at the origin and that one finds everywhere, in the plants and the animals, an energy which passes from species to species, naturally.
How everything changed in 150 years
An energy that Man has taken advantage of.
First in harmony with nature.
The most intelligent species have adapted, observed and imitated, accumulated knowledge and progress to improve their comfort, reduce their efforts, gain in efficiency.
Thanks to fossil fuels, in particular, exploited massively for 150 years.
The “Louis Saint-Laurent” icebreaker in Resolute Bay, in the territory of Nunavut in Canada./M 6 / Yann Arthus-Bertrand
If the planet's 4.5 billion years were reduced to a 24-hour day, those 150 years would be barely five microseconds.
Five microseconds during which everything changed, explains the director.
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More palpable, he also takes the scale of his own life to show acceleration.
40 years ago, he lived in Kenya to observe lions.
A paradise almost lost today, a territory eaten away by greenhouses under which green beans grow, which can be found all year round on tables around the world.
A lion hunting for wildebeest in the Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, where Yann Arthus-Bertrand once lived.
/ M 6 / Yann Arthus-Bertrand
In 40 years, two thirds of animal species would have disappeared, 80% of flying insects, 30% of birds… Today, wild animals only represent 4% of the biomass of vertebrates when humans and their domestic animals , its cattle, represent 94%.
Numbers that make you shudder, striking images
These numbers are thrilling.
He gives some do you want here to better quantify, qualify, understand this global change.
To whip, too, the superior intelligence of this species, ours, but which we do not manage to put at the service of this necessary rescue.
From the sky, with rare exceptions, the images of "Legacy" are sumptuous, surprising, sometimes striking.
Whether it is the beauty of the landscapes or the gigantism of human constructions, these views of the planet are often hypnotic.
Cultures and enclosures for cattle as far as the eye can see, colossal port terminals, herds of buffaloes or masses of vacationers crowded together in the water or on the beaches, the images, as if in suspension, are shot around the world from drones.
Ipanema beach, crowded, in Rio de Janeiro, one of the images seen from the sky of “Legacy” ./M 6 / Yann Arthus-Bertrand
No more helicopters and travel for the director who, in accordance with his convictions, worked remotely with local operators.
In a calm voice and without being moralistic - "I myself have spent three quarters of my life next to this question", he admits - Yann Arthus-Bertrand recounts this frantic race, and how slow it down before climate change makes life impossible in a few decades.
A near future in anticipation of which it is a question of conjugating the verb act in the present tense.
In the imperative and no longer in the conditional.
EDITOR'S RATING: 5/5
“Legacy”
, French documentary (2021) by Yann Arthus-Bertrand (1h40).