Blue Vinyl

Progress means environmental hazards in Blue Vinyl, the eye-opening and laughter-inducing documentary from co-directors Judith Helfand and Daniel B. Gold. The story behind Blue Vinyl begins when Helfand's parents decide to put vinyl siding on their suburban Long Island home. Helfand, with Gold at her side handling the camerawork, visits the companies responsible for polyvinyl chloride, the source material for many plastic products, including vinyl siding.

Helfand has dealt with health issues before. In her 1997 documentary, A Healthy Baby Girl, she examined the effects of DES on her own body. But Blue Vinyl unfolds in the spirit of filmmaker provocateur Michael Moore and his comical muckraking. Their reporting takes them to massive petrochemical plants in Lake Charles, La., and an investigation into groundwater contamination in Venice, Italy.

Animation by Emily Hubley and Jeremiah Dickey give the film an extra bounce and puts a comic spin on scientific terms like "bio-accumulation." Additional features include bonus shorts, a new epilogue and interviews.

By the end of Helfand and Gold's journey of discovery -- looking at the makeup of credit cards, children's toys and countless everyday products -- the toxic impact of chemicals reaches across boundaries of race, class and ethnicity. From a big slab of blue vinyl ready to hang on a Long Island home, Helfand and Gold tell a funny but ultimately unsettling story that travels the globe. And the Rest
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