1

“Underneath it all, I’m just here enjoying life on planet earth,” says Sundog, the radical environmentalist protagonist of Lisa Marie Malloy and J.P. Sniadecki’s A Shape of Things to Come, stating his philosophy for living during one of the few moments in the film in which he speaks. Despite being present onscreen for 90% of the film and active as a key creative collaborator, Sundog is arguably still not the film’s principal subject. Rather, Sundog is a cypher through which to focus on the desert landscape in which he lives, scavenging self-sufficiently in direct opposition to what ecophilosopher Derrick Jensen has termed the “the dominant culture.” For them both, every aspect of the way that modern civilisation is arranged is in some way harmful, so to participate in mainstream society is to be complicit in the earth’s destruction.”