The Martian as Eco-Film

It's been a great autumn movie season--if you're a guy. Male heroes, both historical and fictional, have  entertained wide audiences this fall. A down-and-out boxer Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) gets back in the ring to win back his daughter from protective services after his wife is killed in Southpaw (2015). Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) saves the IMF in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015). Straight Outta Compton (2015) showcases male heroes and villains in the battle over hip-hop. Beasts of No Nation (2015) takes an all-male approach to a story explored with more nuance and a female perspective in Rebelle (The War Witch) (2012). And we can't forget the authentic performances Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, and Michael Fassbender provided in the bio-pics Black Mass (2015), Bridge of Spies (2015), and Steve Jobs (2015). Women get short shrift in this fall line-up. But so does the environment.

Although Robert Redford and Nick Nolte show off the beauty surrounding the Appalachian trail in A Walk in the Woods (2015), and Beasts of No Nation highlight the human and environmental disasters caused by a tragic civil war, neither of these films explicitly addresses ecology. Despite the slew of what Dan Bloom calls cli-fi films from 2013 and 14, including Snowpiercer (2013) and Interstellar (2014), the most environmental film I've seen this year has been the comic sci-fi film The Martian (2015). Despite a narrative focused on bringing astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) home from Mars, The Martian places ecology at its center. As Watney explains in a video blog entry, "In the face of overwhelming odds, I'm left with only one option: I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this."

Because of this focus on scientific solutions, The Martian is the best example of ecocinema I've seen in the theatre this year. As an expert botanist, Watney draws on his knowledge of the natural world in order to survive on what seems like a lifeless planet. Watney even declares, "Mars will come to fear my botany powers." Watney recognizes the need to draw on nature rather than technology for survival and constructs a livable space using natural elements and bi-products instead of artificial (and perhaps toxic) chemicals.

He reclaims water by following nature's recipe: "Take hydrogen. Add oxygen. Burn." But most importantly, he builds an organic farm and grows potatoes using his own waste mixed with the dehydrated and purified waste from crew members who left him behind. The film takes the time to show the meticulous process Watney must follow to grow crops in Mars's arid soil, following  a pattern primarily highlighted in eco-docs about sustainable agriculture. With the potatoes he grows and (of course) the help of a loyal astronaut crew, Watney survives to teach new recruits about his approach. At the end of the film, he tells a class of future astronauts, "Yes, I did in fact survive on a deserted planet by farming in my own shit. Yes, it's actually worse than it sounds." It's also sends a powerful eco message: To thrive, humans must preserve the natural resources that sustain them.