Watch No Impact Man 2009

“No Impact Man” is a documentary with reference to Colin Beavan, dramatist of a blog and book of the same name. The title of this multifarious, multimedia project is, if not exactly deceitful, at least somewhat dual edged. For a year Mr. Beavan and his folks turned their small Manhattan apartment into the site of an research in radical nonconsumption. They forewent many of the amenities of modern life - from coffee to electricity to toilet paper - in order to minimize their use, direct and indirect, of carbon-based fuels. But even as he and his wife, Michelle Conlin, organized their daily routines to have the least possible environmental impact, Mr. Beavan, a freelance writer, was working to maximize the cultural and ideological impact of his venture.
New York City-based author Colin Beavan could take on the opening lines of the Elvis Presley strike “A Little Less Conversation” as his personal mantra. Rather than just dialect his liberal opinions on environmentalism, Beavan decides to take a radical course of action: for one year, he, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter will endeavor to leave as little of a mark on the environment as possible. They won’t take the subway (to say nothing of cars), they don’t use toilet paper, and they turn off their electricity. As seen in this documentary, the project not only serves as a political statement and a one-family crusade for the earth, but it is also the basis for Beavan’s next book and his blog.
It released scheduled the 11th Sept,2009 along with the movie White out.No Impact Man could easily have been another strident environmentalist jeremiad. But Beavan’s earnest fervor is often matched by the Eve Arden sarcasm of his wife Michelle Conlin, who has been dragged practically kicking and screaming into this struggle; she serves as a greeting audience surrogate to Beavan and his crazy quest. The sight of No-Impact Man smugly whipping up eggs while his wife grovels before him for permission to drink a cup of coffee is enough to make us want to hurl a locally-produced pie at him. But luckily, the clever-cracking Conlin can usually hold her own. As a result, the film becomes something of a screwball take on a well-intentioned environmentalist and his long-suffering spouse: Scenes From a Green Marriage.
Filmmakers Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein have created a documentary that works best as a talk piece. It’s not revolutionary in its construction or execution, but it provides talking points for environmental discussions. Few would argue that they actively want to destroy the world, but Beavan actually does something drastic to back up his stance. No Impact Man is no dry treatise on the ills of environmental obliteration; instead this often engaging documentary not only explores its subjects’ experiences with the project, but it also delves into their private lives, offering an intimate look at how one family and one marriage react to a severe upheaval in their routines. No Impact Man might not do for trash what Super Size Me did for fast food, but it indeed makes its audience examine their own habits in the face of the radical experiment they’ve just witnessed.