Climate Trauma by E. Ann Kaplan (review)

In Climate Trauma, E. Ann Kaplan examines the effects of global warming on the contemporary Western psyche and film landscape. Kaplan presents her account of these new developments in an analysis grounded in trauma theory. She notes that while theorists have investigated post-traumatic syndrome, there is significantly less written about pretraumatic stress syndrome. Kaplan suggests that premonitions of future catastrophes have the potential to induce traumatic reactions. She argues that the ever-increasing presentation of dystopic futuristic worlds in contemporary film and literature expresses intense global anxiety regarding our planet’s future. She focuses, in particular, on concerns regarding the collapse of current natural and social environments as represented in recent films in the speculative or science fiction genre. She also, more broadly, examines how the circulation of dystopic disaster narratives produces pretraumatic stress within the viewers of the film and Western culture.

Kaplan divides futuristic disaster films into two categories: the pretraumatic climate dystopia and the pretraumatic political dystopia., Her first chapter focuses on Jeff Nichols’ 2011 film, Take Shelter, while also relying on examples from The Happening (2009, M. Night Shyamalan) and The Road (2012, John Hillcoat). These narratives portray the world interrupted by “catastrophic climate change” (18). These films invite viewers “to engage with pretrauma narratives by identifying with a probable traumatic future” (35). In the following chapter, Kaplan discusses the pretraumatic political dystopia. Here, she concentrates on the film, Children of Men (2006, Alfonso Cuarón) and employs examples from less recent films such as Soylent Green (1973, Richard Fleischer) and The Handmaid’s Tale (1995, Volker Schlondorff) for support. The pretraumatic political thriller engages overtly with politics and “the dangers that are inherent in the corporate capitalism of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries” (59). These films, particularly after the 9/11 World Trade Center attack, examine terrorism, political revenge, and other bleak political possibilities for the world’s future (19).

The subsequent chapters of Climate Trauma examine additional examples from these two types of dystopic film. In Chapter Four, Kaplan examines the role of memory and temporality in pretrauma fantasies. She specifically examines The Book of Eli (2010, Allen and Albert Hughes) and The Road. Kaplan uses these films to illustrate how these filmic constructions of the future can in turn shape the present and the past (20).

In Chapter Five, Kaplan focuses on Blindness (2008, Fernando Meirelles). She places Blindness between the pretrauma political dystopia and pretraumatic environmental disaster film. She also explicitly examines the presentation of body and affect in the gradually deteriorating setting of Blindness. The world in Blindness, Kaplan notes, presents an image of what the world could become “if Western civilization does not change” (101).

In her final chapter, Kaplan shifts her focus to the dystopic documentary. Here, she discusses two traumatic climate documentaries: Into Eternity (2010, Michael Madsen) and Manufactured Landscapes (2006, Jennifer Baichwal). While many of Kaplan’s fictional film examples do not explicitly fault humans for global warming and other contemporary environmental disasters, her documentary choices unambiguously hold humanity responsible for these catastrophes. These documentaries ask the viewer to bear witness to specific future environmental catastrophes and take responsibility for our degradation of the planet.

In Climate Trauma, Kaplan discusses a powerful trend within Western popular culture and film. She argues that this trend reflects a serious cultural anxiety regarding the future of the planet. Developing her case through the examination of persuasive filmic and cultural examples, Kaplan builds a strong argument using interdisciplinary tools, drawing from psychology, sociology, economics, environmental studies, film studies, and many other disciplines. The clarity and logic of Kaplan’s work in Climate Trauma makes her case readily accessible to academics and non-academics, teachers and students. The book lacks an exhaustive and thorough discussion of the gender issues at stake in this sub-genre, and this omission is particularly surprising in light of Kaplan’s extensive background in feminist film theory and history. Climate Trauma still powerfully manages to introduce readers to the pretraumatic speculative sub-genre, while also verifying this genre...