Dean Puckett took his camera to take a look at a group establishing an eco-village in a long disused piece of land in London. Seeing that the community and the questions it raised about the way we live, our relationship towards nature, the jobs and choices available to us, and those that are not, would be an excellent subject for what could become a longer film, he gave up his job and his flat, and moved in. Puckett is perhaps more apologetic than he has cause to be about the unconventional structure of the film since, though there is a certain change of focus at around the half-way point, this is a natural development of the community itself and detracts not at all from the issues the film raises. This is not, fortunately, a documentary that answers all the questions it raises (and the reference to one of Tolstoy's anarchist texts in the title is a little ironic for this reason), and, in refusing to condescend to its audience, it rewards the viewer who is able to bring their own experiences and thoughts to bear upon the material presented to them.
This is avowedly not a worthy film, though, and there are some hilarious moments which, for myself at least, had me laughing out loud in a way I rarely do at the cinema. Some of the characters drawn to the community would have been good for a cheap laugh, in the manner of some of the less generous moments in the films of Louis Theroux, but if that is how they are played in the first instance, I felt that the film later granted these individuals with being seen in a broader context, confronting the viewer with the extent of their own capacity to laugh at difference or misfortune, and allowing them to accept these misfits and unfortunates much as may have occurred in the community itself.
I watched the film as part of Prague's Jeden Svět festival of documentary films raising issues of human rights. Grasp the Nettle and the debate with the director following the film, was one of the most powerful cinematic experiences I have known. It is up there with any book I have read in terms of changing or crystallising my thinking, stimulating me to engage with the world around me, and, to take the message of the film as suggested by the quote from Gerrard Winstanley that opens it, to do something rather than nothing. It is deserving of a much wider audience than it has secured so far. I hope that it goes on to a slow-burn success involving many more indie cinemas and film festivals, and that Puckett may go on to make many more films. Indeed,I hope that I may have the chance to contribute to the crowd funding of some of them myself.
