The Brag

David Suzuki
Force Of Nature
By Natasha Magi

David T. Suzuki was born to Setsu and Kaoru Kaoru Carr Suzuki in 1936, Vancouver, B.C., along with his twin sister Marcia. Worried that his son would be a small man surrounded by Caucasian goliaths, Suzuki’s father named him David. 75 years on, he is generally considered the leading global environmental crusader.

In Australia recently to speak at Melbourne’s Sustainable Living Festival and promote Force of Nature: the David Suzuki Movie, the 74-year-old environmentalists is – as always – focused on sharing his knowledge and ideas about the state of our global environment.

When I finally reach Suzuki on the phone, from his hotel room in Melbourne, his exhaustion is immediately palpable. He speaks fluently and passionately, but it’s several days into his Australian visit, and he sounds almost talked out. Nevertheless, by the time I get off the phone, a mere 20 minutes later, I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face, by the urgency of Suzuki’s environmental message.

Dauntingly billed as his final legacy, Force of Nature outlines Suzuki’s plan for sustainability, and surviving what he describes as our dire environmental situation. More than a call to arms, however, the film also documents Suzuki’s incredible personal history, career and philosophy.

Directed by one of Canada’s most prolific and accomplished filmmakers, Sturla Gunnarsson, Force of Nature takes as its backbone a lecture given by Suzuki in December 2009. Not just any lecture, but his legacy lecture, given upon his retirement from the University of British Columbia, after 39 years of service – or as Suzuki himself describes it, “what I want to say before I die.” Interwoven with footage of the lecture are a number of candid interviews that reveal the more personal, rarely seen side of the public figure.

Force of Nature’s trip through Suzuki’s personal history begins with his painful recollection of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to the forced relocation of his Canadian-born family to a British Columbia detention camp for Japanese Canadians. We then follow Suzuki to Leamington, Ontario – a town proud of its racist heritage. “When I got to Leamington,” Suzuki recalls in the film, “the boast of that town was that no coloured person had stayed in Leamington beyond sunset.” This is where the Suzuki family settled.

Growing up the only non-white kid in a small town, Suzuki experienced a sense of alienation that, while painful at the time, indirectly set him on his career path.

“I would never dare ask a white girl out. But of course, as I got older my dad realized that I was thinking about girls a lot, and he said, ‘Listen: the only acceptable mate for you is a Japanese girl.’ And of course I was going through puberty, and was walking around horny all the time – but terrified to ask a white girl out. [And] there weren’t any Asian girls to ask out – so what do you do when you’re walking around, wishing you were out with some girl, and no one to ask? Well – you go to a swamp.”

From these ignominious beginnings, Suzuki developed a passion for fishing and exploring the local swampland that he still credits with introducing him to the first love of his life: nature.

Now almost 75 years old, Suzuki holds a BA in Biology and a PhD in Zoology, together with 25 honorary degrees in Canada, the U.S. and Australia. He has written 52 books, including 19 for children. His 1976 textbook An Introduction to Genetic Analysis (with A.J.F. Griffiths), remains the most widely used genetics textbook in the U.S., and has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Greek, Indonesian, Arabic, French and German.

Most of us, however, discovered Suzuki through his hugely popular, award-winning television series – from A Planet for the Taking, to The Secret of Life, and The Nature of Things, a landmark Canadian science show that Suzuki has hosted since 1979.

Suffice to say, Suzuki knows what he’s talking about. “I’m enough of a scientist to know where we are going,” Suzuki demurs – “and we’re going right over a cliff. I just say it the way it is, [and] I can now speak and nobody can accuse me of wanting to become famous or wanting to make more money. I can speak with freedom that comes with being an elder.”

What: Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Story
When: Available NOW for local screenings www.curiousfilm.com