Katastrofin aineksia (2008) User Reviews

Interesting idea

[perttu_hartikainen · 8/10 · 26 November 2008]

"Receipes for Disaster" is about a family that decides to try living a full year without using any products or services manufactured or carried out by using oil and carbon. It was an entertaining and fun ride for about an hour and ten minutes, but in the near end I was getting restless and waiting for the conclusion. Finally it felt like one of those movies that could be 10 or 15 minutes shorter.

Even though the movie was a bit too long, I was still very pleased about the whole thing. It was an interesting idea to kick in for the fight against the global warming and if every person on the planet would do the same, we could manage to get ourselves a little more time before the oil runs out completely. If it really is so hard to live without oil for one year, how hard will it be when there isn't any 40 years from now? 8 out of 10 stars.

funny and thought-provoking

[faunaverte · 6/10 · 6 March 2009]

but I was shocked when John threw out the plastic household items (in a plastic bag it seemed, as was shown at the end). If oil is running out, we shouldn't be throwing out existing useful products made of petrochemicals -- which then sit in landfills and never biodegrade, but only break down into smaller and smaller pieces over a very long time, if at all. Plastic particles from rubbish cause more pollution that we can never get rid of. Biofuels also don't seem so ecologically sound if biofuel crops take away food-growing or forested land. Maybe that wasn't the case with the biofuels in the film, but it didn't seem very thoughtful or wise to promote them as absolutely environmentally friendly. The film showed an "ordinary" family trying to live a plastic-free and fossil-fuel reduced life. The family were charming, although there was a little too much of the parents arguing. Perhaps the family could have thought about the food they ate (since raising animals for food can cause a lot of emissions), which wasn't discussed much on the film, and also they could have shown some of the other solutions to plastic-free items that they found (eg where did they end up doing their grocery shopping, and did they find non-plastic toothbrushes, for example?). It was a good film, and worthwhile seeing, but I left feeling a little disappointed.

Motivational thought-provoker

[JohannaTougu · 8/10 · 17 December 2015]

I think this movie is very thought provoking and it's nice to see such a lovely Finnish family trying to make their way as the first ones to save the planet starting from their own home- and it is not easy.

Of course the overall look is not too polished but I like this ''home-made'' style, it really gives an intimate touch to it that makes it easier to relate to.

I loved how the kids were so understanding and rational when it came to giving some old habits or things up. During their experiment, the whole family learned many things and even when many people say that there was too many family conflicts and emotions being displayed, I think it was a perfect way to show that changes towards better are oftentimes hard. The author uses amazingly creative metaphores and pictures to illustrate his ideas.

Although it's a low budget documentary it did it's job for me and it gave me motivation to make a change!