“On a formal level, The Lake is a relatively conservative piece of investigative journalism.”

In his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Rob Nixon writes about the problem of representing and interpreting a kind of violence that happens so slowly, so gradually, and most of the time out of sight, that it may not even be perceived as violence at all. In other words, this is a violence that is not spectacular. Consider, for example, how films usually portray the end of the world: a meteor strike, nuclear war, the biggest earthquake imaginable, or a conflict so vast that nothing survives. Images of immediate, bloody destruction flood our screens, even though what is actually pushing us toward destruction is climate change, deforestation, pollution, and other processes that have yet to take center stage in our collective imagination of how the world might end.

Following this line of thought, Nixon asks, “In an age when the media venerate the spectacular, when public policy is shaped primarily around perceived immediate need, a central question is strategic and representational: how can we convert into image and narrative the disasters that are slow-moving and long in the making?” This concern lies at the heart of Abby Ellis’s The Lake, a documentary about the impending environmental and public health crisis threatening the Great Salt Lake region in Utah as the lake steadily disappears.

On a formal level, The Lake is a relatively conservative piece of investigative journalism. It follows two scientists and local politicians, alternating between interviews with both sides in an attempt to show how contemporary environmental debates are often hijacked by the far right and transformed into conspiracy theories. Despite this rigid structure, the film succeeds by placing scientific discourse at center stage and by exposing how politics has become the force that slows or even prevents meaningful debate and research.

The problem is clearly established: the Great Salt Lake is expected to disappear in the coming years. Less water in the region means not only severe drought, but also the release of toxic dust particles from the lake bed, which are then carried by the wind. Researchers are actively searching for solutions, yet they are repeatedly blocked by a lack of funding and by political pressure. And although the film centers on two political agents, scientists and politicians, now more than ever positioned on opposing sides, Ellis privileges science, avoiding the fallacy of presenting “both sides” as equally valid. This choice is largely responsible for what sets The Lake apart from other investigative documentaries.

In this sense, the documentary follows the creation of a commission to address the lake crisis, examines regional politicians’ stances, documents the death of local bird populations, and outlines the most common health problems linked to airborne toxins from the exposed lake bed. Through this approach, Ellis demonstrates how politicians have successfully portrayed scientists and activists as alarmist or irrational, while masking how they oversell a reassuring “everything will be fine” narrative.

Notably, The Lake also addresses religion as one of the reasons environmental discussions have become so difficult. What is the middle ground when the belief that an impending apocalypse can be prevented through divine intervention removes responsibility from the state and places it instead on individual faith? This tension is evident in scenes where the governor is shown asking people to pray, followed by moments when rainfall or snowfall is quickly politicized and framed as a divine sign of salvation.

Ultimately, The Lake functions as an investigation into the very problem Nixon describes: how do we represent what is not spectacular? Much like Sara Dosa’s Time and Water, another documentary screened at Sundance, The Lake suggests that one solution lies in reducing the scope. Climate change is a global issue, but addressing it does not require portraying the entire planet at once; grounding these problems in the daily lives of small communities can be far more effective.

One lingering issue the film left me with, however, is how much time it devotes to illustrating Utah’s environmental crisis at the expense of developing its characters. As a result, we learn relatively little about who the scientists and politicians actually are. This absence is particularly significant when religion and political affiliation, Democrats and Republicans alike, are central to understanding how inadequately the climate emergency is being addressed.