“I remember nature always creeping in.” Those words, spoken by writer and director Sasha Wortzel in her debut documentary feature River of Grass in reference to how growing up in Florida, the natural world existed in tandem with the human one— she speaks of finding tree frogs in the toilet, opossums in the yard— immediately sent waves of memory washing over me. I was born in Boynton Beach in southeast Florida, about an hour east of Lake Okeechobee— the monstrous freshwater lake, whose name translates to “big water,” that supplies water to much of the state— and 80 minutes north of the Everglades region, which is the subject of Wortzel’s study. But while I grew up farther north, in central Florida, we were still surrounded by nature. I remember finding lizards on the porch, and snakes in the garage. I remember the swarms of love bugs hovering in air so thick you could cut it with knife, and how, in an act of unintended cruelty, my brother and I would catch them and pull them apart, revealing their gooey white insides. I remember the little swamp behind our house, and how the neighbor boys started rumors that a gator lived in the water there, and I remember when our family owned a boat, and we would go to the spring to swim, monkeys clambering and chattering in the trees right over our heads. This seemed perfectly normal at the time, but as my family moved progressively farther north across the country, I discovered that this was not, in fact, the same sort of childhood that others my age experienced.
Maybe for those reasons, I was primed to like River of Grass, which expertly blends Wortzel’s personal remembrances with the stories of others from the region, archival and present-day footage, and the writings of author and conservationist Marjory Stoneman Douglas to describe the history of the Everglades’ past and tie it to its present and potential future, as climate change and land development by humans continue to threaten its delicate ecosystem. Wortzel begins with the increasingly devastating hurricanes that have recently impacted the state, scenes of felled trees and building debris gliding across the screen. In the aftermath of one, she states that Douglas visited her in a dream, prompting her to dive into her work and providing the impetus for this film. River of Grass derives its title from Douglas’ seminal 1947 book The Everglades: River of Grass, which was published the same year the Everglades National Park officially opened, and made the case for the protection of the region, which even then was teetering on the precipice of destruction thanks to resource extraction and rapid development around Miami, including sugarcane farms that were established in portions of the Everglades. The book was an instant smash, selling out its first printing; the fact that it is still in print today speaks volumes to its enduring impact, although admittedly its perceived romanticism of the environment— including its famous opening line, “There are no other Everglades in the world”— has perhaps simplified the actual descriptions of its complex ecosystem and the extent of Douglas’ activism for those whose awareness of the work doesn’t extend beyond the first page. Some of the backstory on Douglas feels a little shoehorned into the movie, but by occasionally cutting to snippets of an on-camera interview conducted with Douglas toward the end of her life in her film, in which her personality as well as affection for the environment is on full display, Wortzel makes her as rich a character as the water that flows down to the Everglades from Lake Okeechobee.
If pieces of River of Grass read as less dense than others, it’s because Wortzel weaves together so many different threads to craft her portrait of the area. For instance, the assertion that Douglas receives credit for the name “river of grass” when its origins can actually be attributed to the Native Americans who populated the region before white men pushed them out is mentioned, but explored with little profundity. Among the other people in the film Wortzel follows are Miccosukee activists and historians— like Betty, whose teachings include the perception of the land as an ancestor binding us together— who work to educate others about the region while raising awareness for the current climate emergency; a mother and daughter team who scour the land for pythons (introduced to the area by humans, not unlike those monkeys I used to swim underneath) whose circumstances have forced them to consume birds and gators and remove them from the area before they wreak further havoc on the environment; a family who has fished in the Everglades for six generations; and a woman tackling pollution from the sugar industry. This wealth of narratives are largely condensed into little more than snippets for the film, but collectively, they work to hammer home one unified message: devastation of the Everglades— once seen as little more than a “vast expanse of saw grass and water” transformed into a “mirage of riches many men would follow to their ruin”— is on-going, and conservation of the area is integral, not only for nature, but for humans for whom the freshwater is an essential resource. Even when the film feels like it thematically bites off a bit more than it can chew, Wortzel draws clear connections between how man’s continual efforts to control the environment only hurt everyone. At one point, she states that hurricanes, in spite of the harm they can do, also cleanse the land— but only when the water can flow freely. She follows up this claim with an aerial shot of sickly green water, trapped by man-made barriers. River of Grass’ cinematography— ripples of sun-dappled water, quiet shots of grass calmly blowing in the breeze— highlights its subject better than any lecture could.
Vacillating between hazy nostalgia (accented by Wortzel’s gentle narration) and vérité footage, River of Grass thrums with a lyrical, romantic rhythm while providing a clear-eyed perspective on a hard reality. Pieces of the film continued to pluck more childhood memories buried deep in my brain the longer I watched it. I remember my family taking me out of town to see manatees because they were my favorite animals; their existence in the wild had already long been threatened by humans. I remember a rare trip to the beach to watch sea turtles hatching, the little critters racing across the warm sand toward the waves as the sun set over the horizon. And I remember riding in the front seat of my grandmother’s car at dusk as sheet lightning flickered in the distance, another Florida thunderstorm looming across the landscape, my dad holding on to me tight because the car didn’t have functioning seatbelts. At some point, long after my family moved away from Florida and into more urban areas, I became an inside kid, spending time after school playing games on the computer as opposed to riding bikes around the neighborhood or playing outside. But I like to think that appreciation for nature has stayed with me thanks to my upbringing. Personal experience can be the best convincer in an argument; Wortzel’s memories, tied to factual evidence, turn River of Grass from a run-of-the-mill nature doc into a rich and vital document.
River of Grass had its world premiere at the True/False Film Festival on February 28. Runtime: 83 minutes.
Katie at the Movies 