Summary
This timely documentary looks at the tensions between generations as a filmmaker follows her daughter’s journey through environmental awareness, music and the futility of the future.
“Nothing matters because the world is dying anyway,” laments Imogen Jones, the unexpected star of this climate-based documentary.
At the time of writing this, a small social media war has erupted between Gen Z and Millennials while Gen X sits back with knowing cynicism and watches it all burn. Both Jones’ statement and the public shade speak to the frustration the youngest generation feels about the state of the future they’ve inherited.
Filmmaker and parent Kathy Drayton began voicing a concern by focusing on the dwindling bat population in Sydney, and the knock-on effects this would have for the wider ecosystem. Yet in the course of making that documentary, Drayton found herself examining the growing despair in her musician daughter instead.
Over a six year period, we watch as Imogen’s budding music career as indie pop artist Lupa J starts to take off. Yet against a backdrop of record high temperatures, rainfall and floods, fires and bat deaths, Drayton also begins to document Imogen’s growing depression and the sense that her societal contributions are meaningless in the face of an uncertain future.
THE WEATHER DIARIES works best when it is focused on the bats as a microcosm of a wider issue. The idea of something so common in Sydney being not just integral but endangered is a real wake-up call for the middle-class target audience. Some of the broader links Drayton are more emotional than documentary, although this just might be her intent.
Yet there’s an odd tension between the doco about bats and the one about Imogen’s ennui. (We all know that one person on Facebook who keeps sharing videos of their kid’s music). Still, there’s some really good stuff in here too, as Drayton continues to film the chaotic environmental changes of the last few years largely from the confines of her own neighbourhood.
There’s a whole other conversation to be had about the potentially unresolved depression Imogen and her peers seem to be expressing here. Her hero, after all, is the lead in Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke, an environmental warrior who ultimately loses the battle. “Why should I even try to have a future at all,” she confesses to camera. “Nothing matters because the world is dying anyway.” It’s a serious statement that warrants concern, especially if Drayton is right and her daughter’s malaise is representative of a generation’s legacy.
As the film ends with footage of the 2019/2020 Australian bushfires, it reminds us how shit this year was at the start, and the stream of unfortunate events that led to us watching this film in a virtual festival. While all those things may feel like disconnected, at the very least Drayton’s film reminds us of the ripple effects each one has.
2020 | Australia | DIRECTOR: Kathy Drayton | WRITERS: Kathy Drayton | CAST: Imogen Jones | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival (AUS), Jotz Productions| RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 10 June 2020 (SFF)
