A Crack in the Mountain [Marlovski Media]

A CRACK IN THE MOUNTAIN
Directed by Alistair Evans
Certificate: U
☆☆☆☆

THE clash between economic growth and protecting the natural environment is the crux of this documentary that takes the viewer deep underground.

The Han Son Doong cave system in Vietnam stretches at least four miles. It’s the largest cave passage in the world and unspoilt – with more people having climbed Mount Everest than visited Son Doong, its pristine state has remained undisturbed for millions of years.

And this is no crawl-on-your-belly network. The chasm in the mountains stands hundreds of metres wide and hundreds of metres high – and, incredibly, was only explored in the past 20 years.

Its discovery has opened up a battle between environ­mentalists, who want to limit visitors to the site, and the authorities, who see it as another natural asset that could be exploited.

With multinational conglomerates lobbying the ruling Communist Party to allow a cable car link to be built, this extraordinary phenomenon, caused by water dripping through limestone over millions of years, is at the centre of a wider discussion about how we approach guardianship of such natural features.

We are told the story of the cave’s discovery, and how a system of allowing just 1,000 explorers a year to visit was set up. But the pressures soon built up. In 2014, the proposed cable car link was met by campaign group, Save Son Doong. Co-founder Huong Nguyen Thien Le explains the extraordinary sense visitors feel, and how walking deep beneath the Earth was like something from the books of her childhood hero, Jules Verne.

She speaks of how Verne’s sci-fi stories have come true – the submarines in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Phileas Fogg could whip around the world in 24 hours. The cave represents Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Visually stunning, A Crack in The Mountain is beautiful to watch. Amazing time-lapse shots of the water levels falling and rising show the Earth’s power and a sense of how the caves were carved out.

Bill Hayton, author of Vietnam: Rising Dragon, describes how Vietnam has a system of national parks, green pressure groups and a wide cultural awareness of the natural world, but when economic interests clash with the environment – “by and large, economic interests win,” he says.

The film is balanced and thoughtful, and the viewer is asked to consider what the opti­mum point is between economic benefits versus the importance of safeguarding natural heritage.