Unforeseen, The

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The terms "poetry" and "real estate development" are seldom paired, but director Laura Dunn has transformed a legal battle over the construction of a suburban housing community into one of the most visually arresting documentaries of recent years.

Entrepreneur Gary Bradley had big dreams when he drew up plans for Circle C, a planned community in suburban Austin, TX. In debt up to his eyeballs, Bradley´s dreams were shattered first by the savings and loan crisis of 1990 and then by militant environmentalists who fought to save nearby Barton Springs, a natural pool which provided both a source of recreation and a spiritual center for many residents.

Bradley picked the only place in Texas where it´s a mistake to challenge the hippies. Austin is described as a tiny island of blue in an ocean of Texas red, and the grassroots movement soon blossomed into a public outcry. In one of the film´s many extraordinary sequences, Dunn shows footage from a city hall meeting in which one impassioned activist after another speaks on behalf of the springs. The meeting lasts until the wee hours of the morning and ends with a burst of wild applause as the council members, clearly persuaded by what they´ve heard, found against the development. The "Save Our Springs" movement has won!

But that´s only the beginning of the fight. A baleful Republican lobbyist, filmed almost exclusively by close-ups of his hands as he paints a model airplane, snickers as he describes his plan to undercut "the liberals" by going directly to the state government with legislation that would enable land developers to operate under the regulations in place at the time their plans were filed for as long as the project takes, even if it takes decades.. His allies there jam the bill through the State Senate only to be squashed by a veto by Governor Ann Richards.

But that´s only the beginning of the fight. In a move right out of the Karl Rove playbook, the bill´s supporters manage to reframe the battle a matter of "property rights," a concept so irrelevant to the issue it should induce howls of laughter. Instead it produces an army of outraged Texans decked in cowboy hats and toting signs that threaten violence against anyone that dares come to steal their property. This grassroots movement also proves to be a major success and provides one of the major impetuses that brought George W. Bush into power. Needless to say, Bush has barely finished his oath of office before the bill becomes state law, and it´s an Ann Coulter wet dream: "Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It´s yours."

Most documentarians would have simply shot a series of a talking heads, and would possibly have been rewarded by an Oscar nomination from a documentary panel that has historically treated aesthetics as anathema. But Dunn, who simply must come from some kind of artistic background, has such a keen and sensitive eye, she breathes beauty into virtually every scene. It´s not just a matter of nature photography though there is plenty of that, and Barton Springs lends itself to some lovely shots. She imbues every single interview in the film with a unique style and feel by her choice of angle or scale of her use of backgrounds. She also shows a tremendous aptitude for composition and line with a fondness for interposing intricate structures like fences between the viewer and the background. No doubt the accomplished cinematographer Lee Daniel, a frequent collaborator with Austin-based filmmaker Richard Linklater, deserves plenty of credit for this look.

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