The doco Scott Morrison won’t want you to see

Review

Burning (16+, 86 mins) Directed by Eva Orner Reviewed by James Croot ★★★★ 1⁄ 2

It felt like a precursor of impending doom. When South Islanders awoke to a new year on January 1, 2020, it was to an unnerving, eerie sight.

The sun was shrouded by a blanket of smoke and there was a faint acrid taint to the air.

So potent were the Australian bushfires at the height of that ‘‘black summer’’, that their effects had drifted over the Tasman, even coating our pristine Southern Alps in ash.

But if that was somewhat frightening, and all but forgotten by the trauma of the events of the ensuing near two years, imagine what it was like for those caught in the direct path of the incredibly destructive bushfires, people left watching helplessly as their homes and livelihoods went up in flames?

Thanks to Eva Orner’s vital, vivid and visceral documentation of the events of those harrowing few months (disturbingly, the first bushfires of that summer were actually recorded in September), you’ll see the devastation and despair in all its tear- and fearinducing horror.

Nothing can prepare you for footage of Mallacoota, Victoria, at 9am on New Year’s Eve.

The sky is pitch black, embers rain down and the flame front is so vast it generates its own weather – pyrocumulonimbus clouds – essentially fire-fuelled thunderstorms.

The sense of powerlessness is palpable – there’s no way of fighting this fire.

Coupled with heart-rending images of blackened and burned flora and fauna, director Orner certainly aims to leave a mark.

She backs it up with testimony from the likes of former fire commissioner Greg Mullins about how this, and the record December 2019 temperature of 47 degrees Celsius in Melbourne, were the clearest indications yet of the effects of climate change on the ‘‘Lucky Country’’.

His and others’ arguments are that the biggest tragedy of all of this is that politicians and others in power knew that events like this not only could take place, but were happening more frequently as the country’s average annual temperature has risen.

And, while the worst of it hit, where was the Australian Prime Minister? On holiday in Hawaii.

Yes, this is the documentary Scott Morrison does not want you to see. He is probably rather relieved it hasn’t had a wide release until after the recent Glasgow climate change conference.

Because when he’s not being pilloried for his protection of the country’s fossil fuel-led economy, he is being mocked for that holiday and his infamous 2017 parliamentary ‘‘lump of coal stunt’’.

No stranger to pointing out Australian government failings, Orner’s last film was 2016’s Chasing Asylum, an unflinching and incendiary look at her country’s ‘‘cruel and inhumane treatment’’ of refugees and asylum seekers.

This takes a similarly provocative approach, aimed at eliciting outrage from the viewer, though it’s not all negative.

Potential solutions are proffered, including one involving harnessing the continent’s virtually unrivalled solar power potential to power not only the country, but the planet (allegedly five-times over).

The heart of her message though, is that the current situation is untenable, and very likely, unsurvivable.

Statistics suggest Australia is well ahead of the curve when it comes to increasing temperatures and that a terrifying and hellish future for all organic life there awaits, unless there’s ‘‘real leadership’’ around the issue.

Burning is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.