Watermark ***
Dir: Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky. 92
mins. Cert: U
Documentarist
Jennifer Baichwal first collaborated with photographer Edward Burtynsky on
2006’s stunning Manufactured Landscapes,
which illustrated the visual impact of industrialisation on the Earth’s
surface. Here, they’ve turned their attentions to the myriad ways water shapes
our landscape, and is shaped in turn by man. We approach fountains, stepwells
and hydroelectric dams from a helicopter-enabled H2O-verview
that is sometimes purely thrilling – pulling up from within touching distance
of the waves to reveal the sprawl of a Chinese seaweed farm – but most often
critical, each fly-by offering pointed observations on what we’re doing with
our most precious resource. Cutting between parched mosaics of Mexican soil and
California’s artificially maintained greenery makes a subtle point; if water
is, as so much dystopian sci-fi predicts, one faultline along which society may
yet rupture, then the cracks are already much in evidence. It’s not quite as
focused as its predecessor, but its best sequences rehydrate the mind.
Watermark is now playing in selected cinemas.
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