Huh. The Mushroom Speaks is a strange little film. In an experimental style, it combines interviews with scientists about the importance of fungi to life on earth, and its potential in countering human damage to the environment, with more philosophical musings told silently in captions on screen supposedly from the perspective of a mushroom. It’s eh . . . odd.
Some of this is extremely fascinating. I love to hear people, who are passionate about a subject, talk about it, no matter what it is. So hearing scientists tell you all about how fungi transforms the barren sand of an abandoned mining site into life-sustaining soil to support trees and plants is riveting. Hearing how fungi can be grown to eat up oil spills or heavy metals in waterways is incredible. The more woo-woo side of things – less so.
I mean I get that’s the whole point, interrogating the human social systems that have led us to this species-threatening event of climate change, and imagining new possibilities based on the social systems of other lifeforms. I’m here for that, and don’t disagree. It’s just . . . it starts to slide away from the scientific into the realms of more . . . Is there a word for where crust punks meet hippies and New Agers?
Anyway, I definitely feel I came away having learnt more about fungi and mushrooms.