Watermark (2013) Reviews

• I'm conflicted

  clancyohara2014-05-13

  Is it a beautiful movie? Yes, it really is. I was transfixed and enraptured by the magnificent images in the movie. But I must say I really didn't 'get' why they put in the scenes of the Bellagio water show. I'm sure that water is all recycled. So it's not an example of waste. And the surfers? What is up with that. I loved the holy water scenes. And yes they went away from making it a talking head movie but they still had a couple of people talk about water. I just think they missed the mark here. They could have made a real education for people about water but they didn't. But it's worth seeing because it is do damn beautiful.

• Poetic study of water, its importance and our abuse

  maurice_yacowar2013-10-15

  Edward Burtynsky's and Jennifer Baichwal's documentary Watermark is a celebration of human stupidity. The film's explicit theme is the interdependence of man and water. It shapes us and we shape it. As an organism we're born in water and we can't survive without it. It's the essential bond not just between man and nature but between people. Burtynsky's whole career has centered on the world we found and how we are changing it. But the implicit theme is our folly. In the Vegas desert Bellagio's stages a magnificent exhibition of dancing, orchestrated fountains. With water. Brilliant that they have the imagination and technology to do that. Gob-smacking idiocy that they so wastefully do so. So too the aerial view of a private swimming pool in a backyard, that draws back to reveal a city full of separate homes with separate pools and separate marinas. Every twelve years 35,000,000 Indians make a pilgrimage to the Ganges, where they wash away their sins by washing their clothes, bathing, and filling their plastic water bottles in the -- may we surmise 'unclean' ? -- river. That they survive until the next festival measures out their imperviousness to logic and to care. We cut to the Western equivalent: a massive crowd gathered on the shore for the US Open surfboard competition. So many cultures, so many gods. To Burtynsky's credit he doesn't explicitly comment on these follies. They speak for themselves. Of course water gives us a chance to show our worth. A community of abalone-fishers link their nets and operations to help each other. They confirm their interdependence (unlike the community with as many pools as families). But the fishermen know their plenteous preserve is only for the while before it dies. As will their community. In Greenland scientists plunge down through millennia of ice to draw up analyses of historic climate readings. But having fine scientists doesn't mean we're not stupid enough to ignore them. As the filmmakers doubtless know, the Canadian government of Stephen Harper has been systematically throttling its scientists, both physical and social, reducing funds and freedom for their research, suppressing their findings, preventing any possibility of their science countering the government's ideology. For more see www.yacowar.blogspot.com.

• Salt Water Taffy.

  teaguetod2014-07-04

  That tens of thousands of dollars were spent, film crew and equipment dragged across the entire planet, only to produce something as insubstantial as this piece of empty eye-candy is rather amazing. Especially when one considers that it pretends to address some of the most crucial environmental issues facing the world in the near future. Hopping and skipping from one place to the next, cutting off stories and interviews right in the middle while never getting to the bottom of any single issue it raises, "Watermark" informs very little. The viewer is left still thirsty for something truly informative. Worse, it's actually boring after a while. In the end, this is simply a watered-down slideshow. Which is a tragedy, really, considering how truly serious are all the issues involved. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to re-watch Baichwal and Burtynsky's 2006 film "Manufactured Landscapes," to decide if perhaps I was wrong to give it such a high rating.

• Fragmented yet contemplative.

  annuskavdpol2014-05-27

  Watermark is a movie about water. It is film in a very choppy way and the narrative is not really structured in a way that allows the audience to understand what is going on, yet this movie seems to have something kind of special about it. I believe that the thinking process of the film-maker, to be unique to the film world, which is a positive thing. I believe this movie to be a stamp of the film makers consciousness in the sense of the fragmentation of the pictures, combined with the story. This approach forces the audience to individual the film experience and to piece together the essence of the movie. Having lived in British Columbia, Canada and having lived near the Fraser River in Canada, I can understand the beauty that river water has. The natural flow of water is a profoundly spiritual sensation because of the beauty of flowing water combined with the sound of rushing water, on the other hand, river water can be very destructive out of her own nature, as when the mountain snows melt and dams break and houses and human lives get destroyed, there is a feeling of utter helpless and despair that goes hand and hand with the profound beauty of water. One of the main conflicts in human life is man against nature. And to me that is what this is movie is about.

• 90 minutes flowing slowly

  Horst_In_Translation2014-08-18

  "Watermark" is the newest documentary by Jennifer Baichwal and you could probably take one quote from it to describe it the best way there is: It's about how water shapes us and how we shape water. Basically it shows us the different way in which water is used today in several branches. These include religion, science, economy, industry... There is really not a lot more to say. The film provides decent information, but it is by no means a must-see. Also I felt that something was missing for this to become a quality movie. It is difficult to name it concretely, maybe the lack of narration, maybe something else. Apart from the occasionally stunning photography and impressive recordings of water masses, this film is really only a must-see for people who live in the areas depicted in this documentary.