Sundance review: 'Users' is a stunning visual poem that reminds us of what humans have done to the planet

‘Users’

★★★1/2

Appearing in the U.S. Documentary competition of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Can be streamed through the festival digital portal on Wednesday, February 3. Running time: 82 minutes.

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Natalia Almada’s visual poem of a documentary, “Users,” would have been a perfect movie to watch with a Park City audience during the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. 

Some people would have walked out, bored. Those who stayed would have had to chance to hear Almada in the Q&A, explaining herself. Then we could have gone to a bar and talked about this beautiful, borderline inscrutable movie for hours.

In a voiceover, Almada considers the past and future of being a mother. “In the past, people could not choose the gender fo their children. We didn’t know until it was born,” she says. Compare that to today, and watching Almada’s baby being rocked gently by a mechanical device. “It did it right every time. It was a perfect mother, and it was everywhere,” she says.

Almada — assisted by sound designer Dave Cerf (her husband) and cinematographer Bennett Cerf (her brother-in-law) — presents breathtaking images and audio of wastewater treatment centers, recycling centers, California wildfires, hydroponic farms, oil wells, heart surgery, and other assorted images. One can read into the juxtaposition of these images with footage of children glued to screens that Almada wants to chronicle the ways hers and previous generations are trashing the planet before their children can enjoy it.

“I wonder if my children will grow up in a world covered in solar panels,” she says at one point, “their food grown without sunlight or soil.”

Almada’s fascination with the mechanics of industrialization call to mind Jennifer Baichwal’s classic “Manufactured Landscapes,” but the message seems more urgent now. The planet is at a breaking point, Almada suggests, and her kids are in the generation that will pay the price.