PROMISED LAND ASKS FILMVIEWERS WHAT KIND OF AMERICA THEY WANT
To frack or not to frack is the question posed, as a small town mulls over the prospect of riches if only residents will sign a contract for future royalties from drilling for natural gas two miles below from oil shale deposits. Steve Butler (played by Matt Damon) holds the pen for them to sign, but environmentalist David Churchill (played by Terry Kinney) warns townspeople that life as they have known, with abundant fresh air and fresh water in a close-knit community, could be destroyed if nothing is found from the drilling. The townspeople, in other words, are portrayed as intelligent decisionmakers, but the choice is stark. Watching a debate that must be going on in small towns from Maine to Ohio, filmviewers will appreciate the spectacle of Rousseauian democracy at work, and the Political Film Society appropriately has nominated Promised Land as the best film on democracy for 2012. MH