COURTESY OF SPHINX PRODUCTIONS
"Go Further" is a documentary of a 1,300-mile bus tour promoting Simple Organic Living. Jessica practices her yoga.
1 convert at a time
"Go Further"
Part of the Hawaii International Film FestivalScreens 3:30 p.m. tomorrow and 3:15 p.m. Saturday at Signature Dole Cannery
Watching Woody Harrelson play the bubble-headed bartender on "Cheers," you'd never imagine he'd grow up to be the brainiest and most socially committed of that ensemble crew.
Yet he has, devoting not only time and money, but also his professional reputation to environmental causes and veganism.
"Go Further" is a documentary of Harrelson's 1,300-mile bus tour (it was a bio-fueled bus) from Seattle to Santa Barbara, Calif., promoting Simple Organic Living -- SOL -- which basically means walking the Earth doing as little damage as possible.
Accompanying him was a posse of friends, including a yoga instructor and a raw foods chef who prepared an avocado-chocolate pie using organic coconut butter -- yum.
The model for the adventure was author Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters tours of the 1960s in a bus called Further, and Kesey appears in the film in one of the final interviews before his death later in 2001.
"Go Further" is a gentle, relaxed tour of the Pacific Coast Highway and of key environmental issues, from clear-cutting of trees to hormones in dairy cattle. Director Ron Mann makes his points without the seething anger of a Michael Moore.
COURTESY OF SPHINX PRODUCTIONS
Steve Clark, a junk-food addict, is the center of attention in Woody Harrelson's film on veganism.
Harrelson is ostensibly the star, but the center of attention is Steve Clark, a junk-food addict whose conversion to the organic, vegan lifestyle is a metaphor for the documentary's message -- to change the world one person at time.
"You know what's in that?" Harrelson asks Clark when explaining why he no longer drinks milk.
"Vitamin D?" Clark says.
"Blood and pus."
"Does that cover chocolate shakes, too? Is there blood and pus in my chocolate shake? Man!"
The cheerful, self-deprecating Clark makes a very likable protagonist. He comes upon a group of crystal-meth junkies sitting in a car, taking hits off an aerosol can of computer duster. He gives them a snack made of seaweed and sesame seeds, which they allow is pretty good. But it doesn't look like they are going to see the light.
COURTESY OF SPHINX PRODUCTIONS
Woody Harrelson.
That's pretty much the way this film is likely to be received. The already converted will find it uplifting, but diehard carnivorous, cigarette-smoking dairy eaters will be vaguely interested at best. At worst they'll see Harrelson's crew as a bunch of new-age hippie tree-huggers with too much time on their hands.
The message of "Go Further" will be best absorbed by the fence-sitters, those who just need a gentle push to make a major change in diet and lifestyle.
But in the end, that is the point of both Harrelson and Mann: One person at a time.
COURTESY OF SPHINX PRODUCTIONS
A number of stars can be seen in the movie, including Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
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