No Impact Man from Sensibilizacion 15-M on Vimeo.

No Impact Man is a documentary with the right title. It’s about a Manhattan writer, Colin Beavan, who decides to do his third book about striving to have zero impact on the environment for a year. His wife, Michelle, and his very young daughter, Isabella, participate in the adventure.

Colin calls all the shots as they take step after step to accomplish his mission. Michelle isn’t as enthused but as far as the movie goes, she does her best to remain cheerful in the face of living with no coffee (not local), and eventually, no refrigerator. Michelle is the epitome of a good sport.

Following Colin’s plan, they phase out carbon-producing personal transportation but they do take a train to visit the farm that produces food for them. With no TV they learn to enjoy living in the moment, the real moment that is their lives. No restaurants. No meat. No fish. No olive oil. No bottled water. No magazines (save a tree). No subscriptions. No packaged food. No throwaway razors. No toilet paper. No disposable diapers. No garbage.

Colin solves the garbage problem by raising worms (undoubtedly red wigglers) in a bin. The worms eat the waste vegetable matter. The rotting veggies give rise to a population of flies (I think they may be fruit flies) living in the apartment.

When the national media gets a grip on his story, Colin is surprised and disappointed at the negative emails he gets accusing him of using the situation only to make money on his next book.

Losing electricity is a biggie, celebrated by a party of friends. They all sit around in candlelight for the rest of the evening. The family sits around in candlelight for the rest of the year.

They do suffer some, and Colin and Michelle are disappointed some, but then they take pleasure from the experience, too. All three of them have a great laugh washing clothes by stomping on them in water in the bathtub. They enjoy fresh food from the local farmers’ market. They bicycle. Colin starts growing a few vegetables in a community garden.

You can’t help but root (a puntentional) for them as they struggle to come to terms with their situation. You can’t help but like this little family, either. Isabella is a sweet kid who listens attentively as poppa explains what they are doing.

This movie is sensitive, touching, and we identify with it because it’s about real people in real lives doing real things. It’s not a matter-of-fact statistical analysis documentary, and it certainly isn’t anything like the unreal baloney of “reality TV.”

The experiment concludes with both Michelle and Colin having learned a lot and having a few epiphanies along the way. I highly recommend it!