Review by “Eye Weekly”

We really weren’t sure how this would play outside of the US. Hopefully our other imminent international screenings like the film as much as this Canadian reviewer did.

Eye Weekly - Feature - 10.04.07

Speaking of weird hybrids, American director Laura Dunn’s The Unforeseen (*****) answers the question “what if Robert Redford and Terence Malick had an HD baby?” Both men have producer credits on this focused yet expansive documentary, which examines the furor over proposed property developments in an extra-liberal section of Austin, Texas, in the early 1990s. A grassroots campaign to protect a community-sustaining hot spring from predatory builders proved successful until a certain rough, smirking beast slouched into the governor’s office and turned the tide.

There’s more to it than anti-Bush sabre rattling, however. The Unforeseen is the rare doc that tempers its emotional appeals with formal and intellectual rigour. The blend of conventional tactics (talking heads, including Redford’s grizzled mug) with brilliantly designed graphics and Malickian lyrical interludes keeps the film fresh for its duration, and a slow-cooked metaphor linking urban sprawl to cancer (both are comprised of cells replicating beyond a body’s ability to properly integrate them) hits with furious force. The film is a masterpiece of sorts, proving that agit-prop can work outside of the hectoring, Michael Moore-minted format.