The Impossible Map
The Impossible Map
| 01 January 1947 (USA)
The Impossible Map Trailers

Development in long-range travel and the growing importance of the Arctic and Antarctic regions make it necessary to understand how maps may be misleading. Experiments with a grapefruit illustrate the difficulty of presenting a true picture of the world on a flat surface and it is concluded that the globe is the most accurate way of representing the earth.

Reviews
Manthast Absolutely amazing
Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.
Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
MartinHafer This is the sort of short film that probably makes geography teachers salivate! Heck, as a history teacher, I find it all rather interesting as well. This short film sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada illustrates why a flat map cannot accurately portray the planet's surface. Using a variety of illustrations using round objects (such as a grapefruit), they show that no matter how the map is drawn, once it is flattened a portion of the Earth is highly distorted.The problem, though, is that to students, this all will probably seem pretty boring--not just because of the subject matter but because of the style of the film. The narrator has no life at all in his voice and the film could have used more energy. Still, however, their use of stop-motion to create maps is impressive and with a bit of updating, this would be a great film.