That night and all week since people told how much they love the movie. There are many good, educational documentaries. Not many of them are educational, entertaining, and transform the way a person thinks about an issue, but Coal Country succeeds at doing all of those things.
(Q&A with videographer Jordan Freeman after the showing)
The film has a point of view against mountaintop removal mining but it benefits from giving time to coal industry spokespersons and miners. They tell the personal stories of a region without delving into cliches about the rural poor or evil industry executives. It shows the severity of the problem without getting bogged down in scientific jargon.
Footage of the beautiful West Virginia mountains, the blasted mine sites, and a very good soundtrack all set it apart from other documentaries.
While mountaintop removal isn't an issue in flat Illinois, it's hard to miss how much the social and political story Coal Country tells has in common with Southern Illinois. Every region that economically depends on coal mining is poor and the companies take advantage of that poverty the same way everywhere they operate. One activist could have been talking about the Shawnee Forest area when she pointed out how towns that focus on tourism are doing much better than nearby mining towns even while millions of dollars of coal and timber roll by on trucks everyday.
During the next few months, Coal Country will be released on DVD and it sounds like they'll invite people to host house party viewings. Don't miss the chance to see it no matter what your views are about the coal industry! It's my new favorite environmental movie since An Inconvenient Truth.