Film Review: Blood in the Mobile
Olly Mann reviews a film which makes him think twice about his new iPhone 4S.
22 Oct 2011, 11:48
Blood in the Mobile - A Movie to make you think
I love technology, and gadget reviews are part of my keep. I’m afraid these two facts have thus far proved sufficient for me to turn a blind eye to the toxic landfill sites, to the conditions inside Chinese factories, and, until now, to the use of 'conflict minerals'.
Casseterite (tin) is an essential element of every smartphone, but much of it originates from unsafe, unregulated mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, thereby funding a civil war. In Blood in the Mobile, Danish filmmaker Poulson and his producer travel deep into the Congo, despite being denied a UN escort, to gain access to a casserite mine. You’ve got to admire their balls. They hitch a ride on a rickety light aircraft which appears to land in the middle of nowhere, then walk for days through areas of jungle controlled by militia (some of whom were involved in the Rwandan genocide of 1994), and, all along, they are told to turn away. 'Pay attention, be careful', warns one man from the UN, after recalling a horrific story about a recent rape in the region. 'Film something wrong, and you are dead'.
Along the way they meet Chance, a cherubic sixteen year-old miner with a broad smile who looks about twelve. He's been working the mines for three years. He escorts Poulson to the shanty town of Bisie, where up to 20,000 workers are trapped due to entrance and exit taxes demanded by armed groups all around. It's chaotic. 'You get the feeling the whole place could collapse at any moment', Poulson says. The miners aren’t best pleased when he follows them down into the hot, sticky, claustrophobic mine itself. 'Why are you filming me?' one of them shouts angrily, hitting the camera. The mine is his livelihood. The last thing he needs is some Westerner trying to improve conditions. He might die working there. But if the mine shut down, how would he make a living?
This astounding footage is bookended by less satisfying scenes filmed in London, the US and at Nokia's HQ in Finland, in which Poulson borrows rather too heavily from the Michael Moore book of self-indulgent stunts, for example turning up unannounced at a consumer trade show and asking a Nokia press officer if there are conflict minerals in his mobile. Er, guess what, he doesn’t have that information to hand (well, knock me down with a feather). However, after months of trying to talk to the big cheeses at Nokia, Poulson finally gets to ask the right people some acute and penetrating questions. If they are ‘committred to improving transparency’, why won’t they publish their supply chain? If they take social responsibility seriously, why don’t they reference blood minerals on their website? In the end, Poulson extracts the most damaging confession - Nokia can't guarantee that there aren't blood minerals in his phone. And nor, it seems, can any phone company.
I’m getting my 4S next Saturday. But this film has removed some of my joy at receiving this essentially pointless upgrade. Will my phone have blood minerals in it? I bet Siri won’t know the answer to that.
Comments (2)
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Michael Moore's energetic self-promotion notwithstanding, if a look-at-me stunt is the only way of galvanising media interest then all power to Poulson.
As for cassiterite, don't beat yourself up, Olly - it's a staple of solder so it turns up on every kind of circuit board. Writing the above review and drawing attention to the issue has more than compensated for your cassiterite paw-print!
22/10/2011 18:28Apart from anything else, I suspect Nokia are quite removed from the source of the ore which gets made into the tin which is used to solder the components by each of the contractors they use. I don't know about Nokia, but Apple use several different contractors to assemble the phones and other products - Apple are involved in buying the processors, the memory, the screens, but do they even know let alone care which company makes the solder to stick them together? If they did, would they know how much of the tin there is recycled rather than smelted from ore, or where that ore in turn comes from? Looking three or four steps back along the supply chain for such a minor commodity would be a stretch even for Apple unless they had a good reason to do so - and like the miner himself said, even the "victims" of this have a vested interest in keeping this going, rather than having their livelihoods destroyed by Western interference!
Now think about this: supposing Apple, Nokia and co wrote it into their new contracts with Foxconn and the other manufacturers that they would make sure their solder was made only from recycled or "Fairtrade" style tin (and recycling of course is another can of worms: when an Indian scrap dealer offers a tonne of reclaimed tin from older electronics, how do you know where THAT came from?), will anyone really benefit or thank you for it, besides your own conscience? Will Chance and his family be happy unemployed?
22/10/2011 18:53