“Invisible Demons” explores the dramatic consequences of India’s growing economy, capturing not only a city in crisis but magnifying our collective climate realities.
Full of compelling visuals, framed in a 4:3 aspect ratio, “Invisible Demons” uses Delhi as a canvas for the worsening picture of climate change. Writer/Director Rahul Jain narrates, interviews locals, and follows a reporter documenting their altering landscape and environment.
A news report by NDTV states citizens are encouraged to limit their activities due to high pollution levels. Jain calmly speaks about the rising temperatures and bad air quality. Jain was born in 1991 when India opened its economy to the chaotic free market. He shows firsthand the chaos of commerce while walking through an open-air market. Jain’s angles, in one particular scene, make the fish look hallucinatory and the cinematography is generally hypnotic.
Jain’s keen eye shows the industrialization swallowing up nature. A drone shot captures white pollutants lining the Yamuna River like a toxic bubble bath. Only thirty years ago the river was drinkable. Jain interviews a man maintaining a small patch of forest who says Delhi was all forest 300 years ago and as the drone camera pans out the tiny space is surrounded by highways. The documentary’s score is ethereal which softens the doom and gloom and symbolizes the slow pace of pollution.
Access to water is a major issue. The current shortage has some poorer schools lacking basic utilities and needing to schlep barrels to the classroom. Monsoons, once celebrated, are now feared. The infrastructure is not prepared for global warming. The floods bring mosquitoes that thrive and spread diseases. To combat the mosquitoes, massive clouds of toxins are sprayed, adding to poor air quality. Further contributing factors are the endless traffic and congestion with idling vehicles emitting harmful pollutants, filling the streets, causing healthy people to become sick. All this pollution leads to low visibility, which not only is alienating in a city but causes more accidents.
We’ve recently witnessed Miami and hundreds of other cities across the US be battered by outdated infrastructure. Leaders of global powers can do more for their citizens and the international community. Air pollution is the leading cause of death for people in India and now COVID (which the documentary ends on with an extra wallop). It’s not all hopeless though, between COVID and austerity measures cracking down on farmers, there have been the largest protests in recent history. If the ruling class can reform economic structures and reshape how citizens interact with the environment, there’s a chance these demons can be exorcised.
Official Selection of the 2021 Festival de Cannes
