We Are Guardians

Take the time to ingest what the stakes really are. Enough people are content to watch the planet burn. This film is about those who oppose, and we should be grateful that such courage still exists.

We Are Guardians reminds us that some fights you can’t give up, even as they seem more impossible with every step-backward election. And that some people realize that one hard truth before the rest of us.

The documentary “We Are Guardians” tracks the constant conflict between the ecological and spiritual significance of this crucial section of Brazil and the commercial forces that brazenly invade to strip it of its resources.

When it comes to climate change, our media diet is starved. So if you need that refresher course in the importance of saving the Amazon, We Are Guardians, like a well-made pamphlet, does the job with plenty of efficiency and heat.

It’s a topic so vast that even a sprawling miniseries would struggle to contain it, and yet directors Edivan Guajajara, Chelsea Greene, and Rob Grobman manage to wrap their arms around the disaster in a little more than 80 minutes; not by simplifying the situation, but rather by contrasting the apocalyptic plainness of the problem with the infinite complexity of solving it.