Solstice-5
A project which has grown so large it has taken a life of its own, unable to be comprehended by a single mind, investigative panel or corporate board, it is sixty years since the Continental Alliance began to strip-mine the surface of Solstice-5, vast digger machines deployed to cut into the rock and extract cores of metals, minerals and liquid hydrocarbons to be refined and utilised.
The factories and replication plants automated, they create ceaselessly and without questioning their purpose or function, warships extruded by assembly bays and floating outwards to join the ever-growing fleet, silent and waiting, serenely oblivious to what they represent, a world converted from its natural form, complex and not fully understood, to a purpose alien to its origin.
A short film directed by Paul Chadeisson whose art and design credits include Love, Death & Robots, Foundation and The Creator, Solstice-5 is co-written with Lambert Grand, a resigned report on the exploitation of an entire world, sacrificed to corporate greed with no oversight, a commitment akin to the mindset of the Vietnam War, that despite no end in sight or meaningful gain to step back would be the unthinkable admission that it was a mistake from the start.
The workers who are interviewed dwarfed by the scale and scope of that which they are beholden to, vast machines which dominate an entire world carving out chunks of the crust revealing the strata of unknown eons, unlike those who see only the bottom line they have the perspective of those who look up at things they cannot change: “The only thing that matches the enormity of this situation is its failure.”
Every frame mesmerising, a time-lapse tale of transformation by unchained technology, of the impact of advancing civilisation on nature, with its consumed landscapes and dusty desert graveyards of abandoned sky vessels there is much of the meditative Koyaanisqatsi in Solstice-5, the only thing which does not convince the platitudes offered by the company executive who insists that Continental Alliance would never place workers at risk.
The unstated corollary being that the ecosystem is expendable, Solstice-5 is a tragedy in ten minutes which is detached in its documentary approach, the statement that 40% of the surface has been consumed or converted a statistic rather than a condemnation, a warning that resources are no finite and that unique beauty cannot be replaced once it is destroyed, that productivity without function is not of benefit to anyone but those who reap a profit which is ultimately at the expense of the planet.
Solstice-5 is currently available on YouTube
