Watermark
Watermark
PG | 04 April 2014 (USA)
Watermark Trailers

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.

Reviews
Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!
Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable
BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See
Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?
kosmasp With the many documentaries that are coming out lately you are used to a high quality. Being because they are funny or because they are very interesting. Unfortunately this ticks neither of those boxes correctly. It seems to wander around like water would once you spill it ... no clear direction.I think there is a very good movie hidden somewhere, but it will be tough for you to find it. It's a shame, because quite a lot of people would interested in more specifics rather just some "nature videos" and a couple of hints here and there, what goes wrong. Just when you think it is heading the right direction, it swerves and goes "wrong" again ... Shame
tinybeachbum 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.
teaguetod 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.
maurice yacowar 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.