“How to Blow Up a Pipeline“ is a manifesto that Swedish Marxist climate activist Andreas Malm wrote shortly after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic during the ban on large-scale demonstrations and mass strikes. The German translation was published in November 2021. Malm propagated a strategy of disruption through militancy and sabotage. The feature film HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE by Daniel Goldhaber builds on Malm‘s book and illustrates its strategy. The political thriller follows the operations of a group that wants to bomb an oil pipeline as meticulously as Jean-Pierre Melville was in following a train heist and bank robbery in THE RED CIRCLE. The six members of the group have different private and political motivations that are shown in short flashbacks: Xochitl is part of a “divestment“ movement in US universities that tries to get private companies and public institutions to pull out their investment in fossil technologies. Indigenous Micheal sees the construction of a refinery on the land of his people as a colonial crime and land theft. Farmer Dwayne has been ousted to build the Texan pipeline, and hippie punks Logan and Rowan are veterans of the autonomous movement in Portland. Their plan to blow up a pipeline without it leading to a huge environmental disaster seems too complicated to succeed. Michael‘s autodidactic explosive competency makes it just as likely that he will blow himself up or that the bombs won‘t go off at all. The extremely thrilling plot has you root for the group. Something could go wrong at any point.

Tom Dorow (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy