Blog entry:Land of Destiny: Review by Lindy West

Lindy West, Guest Blogger Lindy West is a Portland, OR-based World Compass Guest Blogger. Fun fact: Lin...

There is a city in southwestern Ontario where most of the women are widows. I mean, I’m exaggerating, I haven’t done any actual math here, but based on the anecdotes in Land of Destiny—long, tearful lists of husbands, brothers, fathers, uncles, lungs, livers, loves destroyed by cancer—“most” is a piece of poetic license I’m willing to stand behind. 

Quiet, troubled Sarnia has historically been a hub of the Canadian chemical industry. Dow Chemical, Shell Oil, Imperial Oil, Sunoco, and others all operate massive plants and refineries downriver from the smallish city at the edge of Lake Huron. And their employees are dying. Like crazy.

Land of Destiny could easily be titled I Worked at the Petrochemical Plant for 45 Years and All I Got Was This Devastating Wasting Disease: The Movie. "Most of the fellas I work with are all dead,” says one gray-haired industrial worker, resignedly, referring to the plague of asbestosis that’s been busy decimating lungs and lives all over the city. One woman tells her love story from the beginning, from the giddy moment when she and her husband first met as children to the day his skin and bones finally succumbed to asbestos-induced mesothelioma. Throughout the film, the monolithic corporations remain silent. But the workers don’t. "If we're not actors in our own history then we tend to be victimized,” says one union leader. “We tend to be exploited…But we're not dummies.” It’s a depressing, vital reminder of the way that money trumps humanity nearly every time (even in Canada!), coupled with moving portraits of one community’s perseverance and pride. It’s the kind of heartbreaking David-vs.-Goliath story that’s difficult to write about without resorting to clichés. “The triumph of the human spirit” comes to mind. (My apologies.)

Land of Destiny feels a bit fuzzy in its call to action—I was left curious about where the chemical companies currently stand in all this (is this a fight about safety equipment? Workers’ compensation? Straight-up unabashed evil?).  But that’s not really the point of the film.  Land of Destiny isn’t exactly a movie about a movement—it’s not Erin Brockovich or whatever—it’s a broader portrait of a town, one grappling with pain, loss, time, the human need to work, and the slow transition into a post-industrial world (a change that brings its own kind of death). "What's the difference between wasting a life and spending a life?" one character wonders. Land of Destiny is about that.