'First Reformed' and its confrontation of Climate Change, Politics and Religion

Image from Father Son Holy Gore

With Christmas around the corner, and as someone leaning more towards ambivalence of seasonal festivities as I get older (I'm 27), I decided to go for a less conventional choice of film to watch.

I first stumbled upon this film in 2018, on my first visit to Sundance London - a year before I started volunteering. First Reformed is a very interesting slow burn, looking at how religious beliefs can be heavily influenced by climate change and environmental activism (or in this case, extremism); it offers an insight into how easy it is to become radicalised. Paul Schrader poses the collective moral dilemma of how political inactivity and complacency impact climate change, and yield complications for humanity's future. How far is too far when you are pursuing a case you believe to be morally just? Are extreme acts the only way to curb the increasing and presistent damage done by oil and fracking companies?

An existential crisis of this nature through the eyes of a religious preacher provides an interesting and novel perspective of an issue that some argue is receiving too little coverage. For a threat so massive in scale and all encompassing as a direct cause of future lifestyle shifts, it's arguable that coverage of the climate crisis is minimal relative to its scale and pervasiveness.

With the foreboding presence of climate change worldwide, this is an undeniable thought-provoking zeitgeist film.