The recently-released documentary “Unity” questions the human relationship to life, suffering, and our connectedness to every living thing in a powerful look at the world today. If you’re looking for light-hearted fun, you’ve come to the wrong place. If you’re ready to question your entire way of thinking, however, this is the documentary for you.
The official website of the documentary offers the following summary of the film’s message:
“UNITY is a new film from the writer and director of EARTHLINGS, and features an unprecedented cast of 100 celebrity narrators. It is a documentary about why we can’t seem to get along with each other, even after thousands and thousands of years.”
Put that way, it seems a huge undertaking, doesn’t it? Believe it or not, the film’s creators do a laudable job of breaking it down to a relatable message, encapsulated in just one hour and thirty-nine minutes.
Narrating the film is an A-list cast of Hollywood elite: Helen Mirren, Joaquin Phoenix, Ben Kingsley, Ellen DeGeneres, Geoffrey Rush, Jeff Goldblum, and dozens more. Their voices weave through powerful and thought-provoking images of humanity, nature, and the universe itself.
The documentary begins with a disturbing image of a cow being electrocuted and led to slaughter. While the actual killing of the animal happens behind a metal enclosure with only a view of the animals feet coming out from under him as he is slaughtered, viewers cannot ignore the impact of the cruelty and heartlessness involved in slaughtering countless numbers of these sentient beings every day.
If we can ignore this form of cruelty against a feeling, suffering being, is it any wonder then that we can ignore the pain and suffering of our fellow humans? If simply categorizing ourselves as “above” animals in a way that allows us to sanction brutality against them, is it not then easier once we categorize other human beings as lesser than ourselves in order to sanction war, rape, world hunger, and widespread violence against them?
The documentary does not stop with questioning our obliviousness to the suffering of animals. It continues by connecting, in coherent and beautiful leaps, our obliviousness to link between the suffering of animals and the suffering other humans. That obliviousness is how we justify war, weapons of mass destruction, and the mass killings of innocent people in cultures we marginalize and see as less than our own. As the documentary states:
“The harmony of being is when we feel the suffering of every creature in our own hearts.”
When we begin to see ourselves as truly connected, equal, and unified with all living beings, our ability to ignore widespread suffering and sanction brutality against others is diminished. We are greatly in need of more of that worldview.
Don’t take my word for it! The documentary explores these overarching and philosophical concepts in far more concise and articulate ways than I ever could. Check it out, I think you’ll be glad you did.
In the words of Neil deGrasse Tyson:
“We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.”
See the trailer for “Unity” here:
