A despairing handwring of a film shows the effects of environmental crisis on India\u2019s capital \u2013 with images as nightmarish as sci-fi<\/p>\n
Environmental doom is coming: as the planet heats up, it\u2019s all going to get much worse. Nothing new there \u2013 but, terrifyingly, this depressing snapshot of severe pollution in Delhi gives us a vision of apocalypse now. It\u2019s a follow-up by Rahul Jain to another haunting documentary, Machines, about a Gujarat textile factory<\/a>. Here he has captured some nightmarish images that genuinely look as if they could have been staged for a sci-fi film: patients in a hospital gasping into oxygen masks like victims of a chemical attack; streets engulfed by brown smog; waves of toxic white foam bobbing along a river.<\/p>\n This is a despairing handwring of a film. In a voiceover at the start Jain admits his own privilege, explaining that he \u201cgrew up in an air-conditioned world\u201d. What the rest of the film demonstrates is the environmental injustice of India\u2019s economic growth, how the poor are bearing the brunt. Clips from the TV news fill in the details: a 49C heatwave in Delhi (eight degrees higher than expected June temperatures). A news anchor explains that toxic air pollution is the third biggest killer in India, more deadly than smoking and terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n