COLLAPSE

“What he says takes up residence in your mind.” –Entertainment Weekly

 The current documentary landscape is full of doom-laden scenarios: An Inconvenient Truth, Food, Inc., Flow, I.O.U.S.A. But few apocalyptic visions are as comprehensive and frighteningly assured as the one offered by Michael Ruppert, the subject of Chris Smith’s mesmerizing new documentary. A former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter, Ruppert has chased big stories for his self-published newsletter, From The Wilderness, on everything from CIA involvement in drug trafficking to the current economic crisis, which he claims to have predicted. His latest obsession is the issue of “peak oil,” the concern that oil production has reached its apex, and our entire industrial and economical infrastructure will collapse along with it. Shooting the tortured, chain-smoking Ruppert inside what looks like a bunker, Smith’s film illustrates long, feverishly intense monologues with dazzling montages. Ruppert may appear like just another crackpot, but he isn’t an ideologue, which makes his panic more authentic—as do his meticulously crafted arguments. Collapse is by no means an endorsement of Ruppert’s worldview. Smith (American Movie) has enough faith in his audience to allow them to sort it out for themselves. There are many layers to the man and the movie, and it’s hard not to leave the theater shaken. --The Onion AV Club