The Devil We Know is a ninety-five minute documentary about how exposure to a chemical affected people and how it happened. I put it in my queue a little over a year ago after watching Dark Waters, a dramatization of the events from this movie centering Robert Bilott, an attorney who represented them.
I normally prefer documentaries over dramas, and Dark Waters could literally not exist without The Devil We Know. Visually Dark Waters borrows huge swaths from the documentary with sweeping overhead shots of the land and taking the perspective of a person in a car watching children bike on the adjacent sidewalk except the drama used a colder filter and showed the children moving in slow motion to cast a more sinister view of the land whereas the documentary emphasizes the bright beauty of the land and the wholesomeness of the people to make them more relatable, innocent and defenseless against a big corporation. Both films use Wilbur Tennant’s home videos of poisoned animals which feature his distinctive, passionate voice explaining what we are witnessing and has the intended haunting effect.
Still I preferred Dark Waters over The Devil We Know because the drama concentrated more heavily on the time dragging litigation and socioeconomic issues whereas the documentary heavily relied on the human interest aspect of the story by using establishing shots to depict people in their ordinary environment then gradually reveal how this chemical destroyed their life so we can keenly feel what they are in danger of losing and feel outraged on their behalf. We are supposed to see ourselves in them. I do not have to relate to people to feel outraged on their behalf, and it actually had the opposite of the intended effect. For instance, the documentary often emphasizes the Christianity of the victims, but definitely after 2016, Christianity is not synonymous with decency, and when one victim says that he does not blame DuPont, he blames the people who make the decisions in DuPont, I was so frustrated. Nothing is going to change if even people grievously injured are still caping for their abusers. It made me wonder how these plaintiffs voted. It felt like a lot of filler though I think fleshing out the human side of the story would probably appeal to most viewers.
Still The Devil We Know does a better job of transitioning between plaintiff’s stories without noticeably losing momentum because after the drama stopped focusing on Tennant and shifted to the broader community. Joe Kiger and other plaintiffs get more individual screen time. The documentary is framed as an answer to a child’s question verbalized as an adult questioning why this happened to him, i.e. the second generation exposed to this chemical. The suspense lies in how it will affect subsequent generations since every living being has been exposed to it. The documentary unintentionally undercut its central point when it admits that scientifically it cannot be proven that the chemical was responsible for the child’s ailments when there are so many other people who can prove it yet he is the film’s muse. Again I do not need to see the real world human cost to be swayed, but most people hate theory and facts and sometimes even appeals to the human heart do not elicit outrage, but the documentary does its best to manipulate our emotions.
The Devil We Know does a great job of illustrating how omnipresent these hazardous products are with sequences that show all the quotidian products that use this deadly chemical. I saw Dark Waters, and I totally forgot that the word repellant could indicate that the chemical is present in the product. Guess what kind of jacket I bought in the fall? Come on! This documentary did a more effective job to make that point memorable so hopefully I will be more vigilant in the future.
I was surprised by how little the documentary focused on Bilott in comparison to Dark Waters, but not disappointed. He serves as a kind of mystical, arms length figure who is more of a rescuer than even the Environmental Protection Agency whereas Mike Papantonio appears more frequently to speak of his first-hand experience fighting for these plaintiffs and translate the legal process to the viewers. I do not think that Papantonio is a character in the drama. I adored how the filmmaker predominantly used the corporation’s words against them by playing deposition video, archival footage, excerpts from their stores. We get to hear talking head experts, including The Intercept’s Sharon Lerner, who wrote of the articles that inspired the drama, and Ken Cook from Environmental Working Group. I am unfamiliar with Cook or the organization that he is affiliated with, but he and a former Dupont chemist, Glenn Evers were just as riveting talking about the vegetables of the story.
If you do not have a lot of time, prioritize watching Dark Waters with the caveat that it gradually loses momentum as it unfolds. If you do watch the drama, The Devil We Know is must see viewing because the movie only focuses on DuPont whereas the documentary compares and contrasts other corporations’ actions to DuPont, and DuPont does not come out favorable. The movie ends on a kind of cliffhanger as DuPont finds legal ways to rehabilitate its image without necessarily changing the spirit of its work. The sequel documentary should be called The Devil You Don’t.
If I had to objectively criticize The Devil We Know, the criticism would apply to all documentaries. I would rather see a person’s name appear repeatedly than just once and never again. It is a blink and miss it moment that does not matter if a viewer is supposed to watch the documentary then move on, but documentaries such as this one act as previews for real life research and action. The final scene encourages viewers to visit thedevilweknow.com, which I did, and hurrah, my water is not contaminated with the chemical. It is helpful not to have to rewind.
The Devil We Know left me struck with the persistence of life. How do living beings survive with so many powerful people out to kill them for the bottom line? If you are sensitive to seeing animals suffering, you may want to stay away from this documentary because the images are upsetting.
