Most people don’t think about how their actions affect the world at large. They look at things on a small scale, and change things to make their own lives easier.  The problem with this way of thinking however is that sometimes their actions don’t cause them any grief, and doesn’t prepare them for what the future could bring. The Ants & The Grasshopper is a documentary that tries to change that way of thinking.

Anita Chitaya is a farmer in a small village in Malawi, who has the skills needed to grow an abundant amount of food from dead soil. However, due to global warming she wonders how long she will be able to do so.  She then works as a crusader for gender equality and ending child hunger in her village. Documentary filmmakers Raj Patel and Zak Piper enlist her to travel to the United States. She embarks on the daunting task of goin to farmers and politicians in a much larger country. There, she tries to convince them that climate change is real and that something needs to be done about it before it’s too late.

Seeing climate change through different eyes is an interesting approach to take. It’s not so much that the farmers in the US don’t care about it. It’s more that they don’t really understand it or how it could be a larger issue. Many climate change documentaries come off as being too preachy as well. But thankfully, Patel and Piper do a great job avoiding that. They stick to how it is affecting others. And they leave the audience to determine if it’s a big issue or not. It’s also refreshing to see Chitaya learn from her American counterparts as well. She sees the problems they are facing and how they are dealing with them. The film also doesn’t push judgement towards the people with different viewpoints either. This is unique for these types of films.

There aren’t a lot of problems with The Ants & The Grasshopper, yet the couple that do exist may be an issue for some viewers. For starters, there is a fair bit of Christianity sprinkled in, with what they are doing being ‘God’s will’. Both sides use this argument at times, instead of looking at the science behind global warming and the sociological issues it’s creating. The film also ends with the typical signs of optimism. One farmer changes the way he does things and one politician pushing forward a positive bill of change. The politician one feels forced in however, because it happened two years after his meeting with Chitaya. In reality she probably did nothing to change his mind, and he was more than likely acting on what his constituents wanted him to do.

While The Ants & The Grasshopper isn’t necessarily a film you need to rush out and see at a theatre, it does offer an interesting take on global warming that would be beneficial to see. It’s a short film too, and won’t take too much time out of your day.