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Watermark
Following their triumph with Manufactured Landscapes, photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal reunite to explore the ways in which humanity has shaped, manipulated and depleted one of its most vital and compromised resources: water.
Release : | 2014 |
Rating : | 6.9 |
Studio : | Sixth Wave Productioins, |
Crew : | Director of Photography, Director, |
Cast : | |
Genre : | Documentary |
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That was an excellent one.
Great Film overall
Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
Stunningly beautiful and powerful images highlight this examination of how mankind re-shapes water and how it flows – for good and ill, more often ill - and in turn how the water re-shapes civilization and human behavior. There's no real story, just a series of visits to locations around the world where water powerfully interacts with humanity, like the pilgrimage of 30 million people to bathe in the Ganges river.Without narration and a specific focus the film could be accused of being too diffuse. But for me the raw power of the images – Burtynsky is one of our greatest still photographers who has spent much of his career creating huge images of humans and nature clashing and interacting - give the piece a poetic, if not literal power and solidity. Also, if the film is not enough, there's an almost 40 minute gallery of Burtynsky's amazing still images, which look great blown up on a HD set, as he explains the photographs and how they were taken. That extra alone is reason enough to own the blu-ray. It's like the world's best photography book, with the images at least a little closer in size to Burtynsky's massive prints.
This movie showcases the cinematographer/director's beautiful eye. That's it. His ego is on display in the cinematography along with all of his indulgences. The images are beautiful, buy very bad storytelling. The opening of this file is interesting in that it gets your attention, but then quickly lost mine as I thought I was watching a silent film. This is not a documentary. The most dialogue happens around the 45 minute mark. I still don't know what their main point was for this movie. What is it about water that they are trying to get across? Basically, what I got of this movie is that they left it up to us to make our own conclusion about water. I watch movies so I don't have to come to my own conclusion. If I want only my own opinion then I don't need to watch a movie for that. That's an hour and half that I will never get back.
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.
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.