Blue Vinyl: A Toxic Comedy Picture

Documentary film directed by Judith Helfand and Daniel B. Gold, produced by Helfand, Gold, and Julia D. Parker. Premiere on HBO on May 5, 2002.

See details at: Blue Vinyl.

Blue Vinyl. The Documentary Award Winner for Excellence in Cinematography at this year’s Sundance Film Festival,

Blue Vinyl documents the persistent and often amusing campaign of co-producer Judith Helfand to convince her parents to remove their newly installed vinyl siding. In the process of educating herself and convincing them, Helfand presents a powerful, if not exactly balanced, case against PVC in general.

Part autobiography, part investigative reporting, and two parts comedy,

Blue Vinyl succeeds because Helfand, who stars in the film along with her parents, is so sincere yet unpretentious in her mission.

Her search for evidence against vinyl takes her to Louisiana, California, and Venice, Italy, among other places, as she interviews toxicology experts and alleged victims of exposure to vinyl chloride monomer (VCM). In the process, she makes the case (rejected in the film by Vinyl Institute spokesperson William Carroll) that there is no safe level of exposure to VCM, and that millions of factory workers who fabricate products from PVC are at risk of angiosarcoma (a rare liver cancer) and other health problems. (The industry position is that only the very high VCM exposures that were once common in PVC resin manufacturing can lead to angiosarcoma, and that current safety practices prevent such exposures.)

While addressing VCM-related health concerns in great detail, the film glosses over many other issues that might have confused her case, such as the fact that dioxin is released from many industrial processes other than vinyl manufacturing. In the interest of keeping the film accessible and entertaining for a lay audience, Helfand also leaves out issues associated with additives such as stabilizers (which are used heavily in siding) and plasticizers (which are not).

The film continues beyond the case against vinyl and into Helfand’s search for a nontoxic and affordable alternative siding for her parents’ house. Her eventual choice is arguably successful on one of those criteria. Finally, Helfand applies her by-now-familiar persistence and humor to the challenge of how to deal with the vinyl once it is removed from the house, and comes up with an unexpectedly effective solution.

– NM