Crude: The Incredible Journey of Oil is a 90-minute documentary about the prehistoric origins, the history of the oil industry and the effort to make it a profitable one, its imminent extinction and its effect on global warming. It took me repeated attempts to watch Crude: The Incredible Journey of Oil.
For example, when Crude: The Incredible Journey of Oil returned to the prehistoric era to discuss global warming, I theoretically understood why, but it made the narrative structure more confusing than ever. In addition, by overly relying on CGI graphics at the beginning and end of the documentary, people, like my mom, who are inclined not to believe in global warming, have a foundation for dismissing the whole documentary as a work of fiction.
I also hated the perspective of Crude: The Incredible Journey of Oil. It made the history of oil seem independent from human factors like racial prejudice as reason for creating suburbs and increasing highways. If documentaries make such moves seem like purely an economic, rational incentive as opposed to being rooted in subjective human motivation, negative or positive, those documentaries are not good ones.
Skip Crude: The Incredible Journey of Oil. The documentary theoretically sounds interesting, but was a tedious viewing experience. Was it inspired by Sonia Shah’s book, Crude: The Story of Oil, and is the book better?