RIDM Reviews 1 : Preparations for a Miracle

Tweet

Straddling sci fi and documentary, Preparations for a Miracle, follows an intelligent, humanoid machine that has traveled back in time to find the King of the Humans. The future is dark, machines roam free, and there are no humans left. Able to communicate with “ancient machines” — escalators, diggers, robotic arms — but not humans. The android witnesses the final days of an activist battle to prevent an open-pit mine expansion from destroying the town of Lützerath, a German village, during the COVID pandemic. The android believes these events are the creation of an arena where the voice of the King will be heard by all humans.

The android’s misunderstanding gives the documentary a fable-like quality and allows a unique viewpoint for the familiar albeit tragic destruction of nature and human environments in the name of profit. Activists strap themselves to trees, build wooden structures up high, and don protective gear for tear gas. They stand up to police who brutally and forcibly remove them from “private” property. They march, chant, place objects as barriers, hold raves, and do everything they can to prevent destruction. Inevitably the activists are removed by force, the trees come down, and the land is claimed.

The story is told through a first-person perspective of the android’s viewpoint. His shoes and hands appear in the frame from time to time. Shots of different objects, people, animals are held long enough to show that the android is like any tourist — he’s fascinated by the exceptionality of the mundane. The android occasionally makes an analysis based on what is seen and drops hints about life in the future where machines are no longer slaves and humans no longer exist. This first-person viewpoint coupled with its inability to grasp what is going on mirrors our own confusion at what the android witnesses. How can trees and towns can be destroyed for the sake of producing dirty-energy sources like coal. “We’re not the criminals,” shouts one protestor. Things come to a head over the last farm of Lützerath and the distraught farmer’s attempt to fight what he knows is a losing battle.

Overall, the film runs long and is a little disjointed. There are magnificent shots of the misty, cold conflict in the forest between the police and the activists. The landscape is exotic in its bleakness. But the frame story of the search for the King of the Humans feels under-conceived and doesn’t integrate into the film as well as it should. It is a clever strategy for telling the story, one that is otherwise somewhat familiar to many of us in North America, and I think that if a little bit more cohesive, it would have blended in better. Unfortunately there are a lot of repetitive scenes as the android travels from forest to farm or walks around. These are totally unnecessary and made the story drag at points. With a willingness to inject fiction into a documentary, it seems like the director Tobias Nolle could have also modified some of the timeframe for the sake of good storytelling. What works best, though is the close parallel the viewer feels to the android and its perception of contemporary situations. This points to how viable this genre crossing can be in documentary film.

The RIDM continues until December 1. Information about films can be found HERE.