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STARS LAUNCH SAVE THE ARCTIC CAMPAIGN

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Greenpeace to plant a million names on seabed beneath the pole

Stars from the worlds of music, film, TV and business are today launching a campaign to save the Arctic.

Sir Paul McCartney, Penelope Cruz, Robert Redford, One Direction, Alexandra Burke, Jarvis Cocker and Sir Richard Branson are among dozens of famous names who are asking for a global sanctuary in the Arctic. They have joined forces with Greenpeace to demand that oil drilling and unsustainable fishing are banned in Arctic waters.

Others demanding that the uninhabited area around the North Pole is legally protected and made off-limits to polluters include Edward Norton, Woody Harrelson, Jude Law, John Hurt, Rita Ora, Thom Yorke, Tim Roth, Thandie Newton, Bruce Parry, Lawrence Dallaglio, explorer David de Rothschild and Cilla Black. (Full list below.)

They are among the first one hundred names to be written on an Arctic Scroll, which is launched by Greenpeace today at the Rio Earth Summit. When a million others add their own names Greenpeace will embark on an expedition to plant it on the seabed at the North Pole, four kilometres beneath the ice. The spot will be marked by a Flag for the Future designed by the youth of the world.

Anybody in the world can add their name to the Arctic Scroll and have their name planted beneath the pole by visiting www.SaveTheArctic.org

The huge expanse around the pole belongs to all of us because it is defined in international law as the high seas. But as temperatures rise and the ice melts the Arctic states – Russia, Canada, the US, Norway and Denmark – are making territorial claims on the seabed so they can open the door to oil companies. Arctic sea ice has retreated dramatically in recent years and scientists say the North Pole could soon be ice free.

The campaign is formally launched today at the Rio Earth Summit at a press conference (details below) hosted by Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo, Sir Richard Branson and actress Lucy Lawless, star of Battlestar Galactica and Xena: Warrior Princess. Lucy will be sentenced in September after scaling oil company Shell’s Arctic drilling rig and blocking its operations for 72 hours in New Zealand in February.

Sir Paul McCartney said: “The Arctic is one of the most beautiful and last untouched regions on our planet, but now it’s under threat. Some countries and companies want to open it up to oil drilling and industrial fishing and do to the Arctic what they’ve done to the rest of our fragile planet. It seems madness that we are willing to go to the ends of the Earth to find the last drops of oil when our best scientific minds are telling us we need to get off fossil fuels to give our children a future. At some time, in some place, we need to take a stand. I believe that time is now and that place is the Arctic.”

Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo said: “The Arctic is coming under assault and needs people from around the world to stand up and demand action to protect it. A ban on offshore oil drilling and unsustainable fishing would be a huge victory against the forces ranged against this precious region and the four million people who live there. And a sanctuary in the uninhabited area around the pole would in a stroke stop the polluters colonising the top of the world without infringing on the rights of Indigenous communities.”

As part of today’s launch, polar bears have been appearing in cities around the world.

Shell is due to begin exploratory drilling at two offshore sites in the Alaskan Arctic in the coming weeks. If Shell is successful this summer, an Arctic oil rush will be sparked and the push to carve up the region will accelerate. Russian oil giant Gazprom is also pushing into the offshore Arctic this year.

In 2007 Russian explorer Artur Chilingarov planted a Russian flag on the seabed beneath the pole and ‘claimed’ it for Moscow. Wikileaks documents later revealed he was acting on the instructions of the Russian Government. Now Greenpeace is planting the names of a million global citizens beneath the pole and marking the spot with a Flag for the Future designed by children in a global competition organised by the ten million-strong Girl Guide movement.

The campaign will initially focus on pushing for a UN resolution demanding a global sanctuary around the pole and a ban on oil drilling and unsustainable fishing in the wider Arctic. The campaign was launched today because the Arctic Circle is defined as the area of the globe which on the longest day – 21 June – experiences 24 hours of sunlight. On 21 June the sun never sets on the Arctic.

Rodion Sulyandziga from the Udega People and First Vice President of RAIPON (Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North) said:

“At present, the Arctic – one of the last unique and intact places on Earth – is facing a real threat from active oil drilling. A large scale oil exploration ‘development’ can irreversibly destroy the virgin purity of the Arctic region, putting at stake the physical existence and survival of Indigenous Peoples who, without their traditional living patterns, without their eternal habitat, will have no future.”

Three Arctic states, the US, Canada and Russia were responsible for sinking an Oceans Rescue Plan in Rio which would protect the vulnerable marine life of the Arctic’s international waters and enable the establishment of a sanctuary in the area around the pole.

Kumi Naidoo added: “We’re drawing a line in the ice and saying to polluters ‘you come no further.’ People ask me why I, as an African, care so deeply about the Arctic, but the answer is simple. The Arctic is the world’s refrigerator, it keeps us cool by reflecting the sun’s energy off its icy surface, but as the ice melts it’s accelerating global warming, threatening lives and livelihoods on every continent. Wherever we come from, the Arctic is our destiny.”

A new short film written and produced by advertising legend Trevor Beattie and released today uses stunning Arctic footage shot by world-renowned ‘Earth from the Air’ photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The film is narrated by Golden Globe-winning actor John Hurt and can be viewed at www.savethearctic.org

MELANCHOLIA {Film Review}

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MELANCHOLIA

Trust the tale and the not the teller goes the old saying,and with good purpose too. While it may be easy to dismiss Melancholia in light of Danish enfant terrible director Lars Von Trier’s bafflingly out of taste ‘joke’ at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, those who do, would be doing a disservice to one of the most striking and elegant films of the year. A haunting and strange sci-fi tale of sisters emotionally disintegrating, bitter family ties, depression, and the end of the world as we know it; it’s an engrossing and beautiful work that stands as perhaps one of Von Trier’s best. The plot seems simple from afar; Justine (Kirsten Dunst), a young and successful career woman, has just been married to an incredibly sweet and handsome young man named Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). Their reception is hosted at a remote castle being paid for by her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband John (Kiefer Sutherland) where various members of her family and work colleagues mingle together. Though she seems to have everything one could want, Justine rapidly sinks into a deep depression and grows distant from her new husband and sister. Matters are not helped as her separated mother and father (Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt) tear open old wounds at the reception dinner and humiliate both their daughters. There’s also Justine’s astonishingly cruel and greedy employer (Stellan Skarsgard) who seems intent on committing her for a sales pitch before she’s even cut her wedding cake. Can this agonizingly uncomfortable social setting be the reason for Justine’s intense depression? Or could it be the mysterious rogue planet Melancholia which is passing close by to Earth and may just collide with it?

From the beginning Von Trier makes no allusion as to the outcome of the story as he opens with an astonishingly stylised prologue of Melancholia colliding into the Earth, interspersed with surreal imagery of the main characters and a Wagner score playing at deafening levels. Playing out in graceful slow motion, the images in this sequence resemble hauntingly beautiful classical artwork and seem a rapid departure from Von Trier’s usual style. He quickly reverts to this in the two distinct narrative acts of the film. Part one follows Justine as she arrives late at the wedding and bears witness to the social car crash that occurs. Von Trier made his mark in the mid nineties with the Dogma 95 movement, where he and several fellow filmmakers decided to shoot with nothing but what was provided within the environment of the shooting. No formalism and no gloss. Here he seems to bend his rules to a degree, employing a roving hand held camera that snatches out at specific incidents of lines of dialogue yet manipulates the appearance of the frame with beautiful downcast lighting that drenches the proceedings with an ominous dread that harks back to the opening scene. It marks a meeting of styles that Von Trier has been calling to in recent years the most notable examples including Dancer In The Dark and Antichrist, where he combines his realistic aesthetic with a tremendously stylised and fabricated one. Some may accuse him of betraying his former principles yet there is an astonishing visual rush of the first act that reveals Von Trier’s talent at visual style and composition.

The second act is far more intimate character piece, focusing on Claire as she cares for a near catatonic Justine and frets over Melancholia’s passing by. It’s in this section that we are reminded of Von Trier’s incredible direction of actresses. The male contingent gets its shout from Kiefer Sutherland who plays the foolish rationality of Claire’s husband well; if anything it’s disconcerting to see him so subtle after eight years of beating people senseless in 24. Yet it truly is Dunst and Gainsborg’s film to steer and they do so brilliantly. Dunst in particular shines in a way that she has not yet had to do in her career, outside of her work with Sofia Coppola. She imbues Justine with a fragile grace that barely conceals the chasms of despair that inexplicably overcome her. Her transition from emotional cripple to enigmatic foreseer of doom is loosely defined yet utterly compelling. Gainsbourg handles the reverse side of Claire excellently as well, the grim irony of the inevitable outcome reflected in her luminous screen quality. She personally reminds me of the likes of Liv Ullman, an actress whose facial expressions seem destined for the big screen.

Von Trier claims to have made the film in the midst of his own crippling depression and the process of bringing it to the screen was a catharsis for him. However much of this is true, is rife for debate. What we have is the work itself; an intoxicating, intricate and incredibly ambitious attempt to contrast the intimate with the epic. Von Trier’s detractors will almost certainly find his directorial vision too singular and his depictions of women distasteful, but rather than mere attention grabbing he has crafted an overwhelmingly powerful cinematic piece that stands as one of his finest to date. A depressive apocalypse drama that leaves you ecstatic? It’s a keeper.