Lynne Wycherley * comments on the film directed by Marc Khanne
October 2016
"In the sensitive hands of award-winning environmentalist Marc Khanne, we meet person after person stripped of the daily life so many of us take for granted"
Unseen, unheard, until now, a new class of refugee is one of the growing, tragic aspects of society's unquestioning dive into mobile/, smart, technologies. Tablets'icons can mesmerise. Gaze deeper, and we may glimpse a haunting face: the " electrosensitive " that any of us, a stunning lilm suggests, may soon become. "It could happen to anyone " says Philippe, a soft-spoken former IT teacher who has lost everything - his work, his home, his access to everyday life. He huddles. with many other such refugees, in a forest in France. "It is so easy to irradiate" he says. " so difficult to escape".
In the sensitive hands of award-winning environmentalist Marc Khanne, we meet person after person stripped of the daily life so many of us take for granted. The symptoms they experience during, or after time, in places dense with WiFi, smartphones, 24-hour cordless phone transmitters, and mobile phone masts - a cacophony of RF fradio frequency] pulsed microwaves - have led to exile, or a diminished life.
Exhausted by brutal headaches, worsened, she believes. By neighbours'transmitters. Elisabeth, a nurse forced to stop work, can sleep only in her car.
Such suffering. explains Khanne, is often cast as "une peur irrationnelle" (an irrational fear) rather than the environmental illness it is rapidly proving to be. How can anyone dismiss what sufferers are saying, he emphasises, without first hearing them?
Sharing his own journey of discovery, he highlights a global trend. Sensitively paced, his film is a poetry of juxtapositions: flashing screens/dripping forest; smartphone posters/wan refugees. And outside a closed conference, sufferers hold placards of despair. In Paris, meanrvhile, an 11-year old boy, violently ill for a year, has just had brain scans and blood-tests linkins his symptoms with exposure.
Of the 'electro-sensitive, doctors contacted, only one agrees to be filmed; the others are afraid to "come out." Whistle-blowing scientist Pierre le Ruz is more candid. A former leader of radar research, he explains the 'microwave syndrome' seen in military research, including his own, mirrors today’s ’electro_sensitivity’, - a term which unhelpfully shifts the focus away from the pollution to those who are most affected by it. The mobile industry, he testifies, has adopted radar frequencies that were abandoned as too dangerous :
"même ondes pulsées, même fréquences, même symptomes" (the same pulsing waves, same frequencies, same symptoms). Filmed on the road, meanwhile, ex-
telecoms engineer Bernard continues his moving quest, like many others, for a « white zone » - an unpolluted space to relieve his headaches, dizziness, and insomnia.
Other documentaries widen the debate. With limited funding, and appreciable courage, directors Jean Hêches, and Josh del Sol, fight to make our wireless pollution visible. In Microwaves, Science & Lies (2014), a compelling investigation, Hêches reveals vast "product defence strategies" first used by tobacco giants to deadly effect. From top-level conflicts of interest, to sensitive footage on the ground, this arresting film - set partly in Sweden - raises crucial questions.
Take Back Your power (2014 ed.), meanwhile, directed by Josh del Sol, is a vital humanitarian fllm. Winner of three awards, it is a stark reminder of how fossil fuel multi-nationals can ruthlessly seize the world stage. Eloquently fllmed, and best seen in full, its exposé of wireless smart-meters, their assault on our health, and the corporate hijack behind them, is strong medicine. And an inspiration to all of us to champion far safer, less toxic ways of managing our energy.
Though insightful, these fllms rarely address the pollution's ecological risks, signalled by James Russell’s beautiful film Resonance (2012) and Katie Singer’s book Electronic Silent Spring (portal Books 2014). Nor do they highlight new peer-reviewed research on risks to our nervous system and DNA, or explore clean ways forward we might adopt, such as low-pollution retreat centres, and 'Building Biology', the international movement for non-toxic buildings. But how they open our eyes ! Before microwave faschions deepen, creating a more dangerous ‘5G’world, each of us needs to view these astonishing films.
* : Lynne Wycherley is a poet with six published collections. She was forced to give up work and move house after wireless over-exposure. She lives in Devon, England.