Exquisitely filmed and orchestrated, highly absorbing and, on occasion, providing an overwhelming feeling of 'Mal de Mer' - that is until the floods and winds arrive that turns it into a saturated 'Mal de Fossil Fuels'. Let's leave them in the ground and avoid a wet and watery apocalyptic drowning - while hoping its not too late to avoid the deluge that's imminently upon us.
21 Reviews
splash and moan
ferguson-629 August 2019
Greetings again from the darkness. This is not your father's Nature documentary. It's more like Mother Nature giving us a glimpse at her most beautiful, peaceful, ferocious and terrifying self. And it's just water. Simple H2O. Only it's not so simple. In fact, water takes many forms, and Russian filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky serves up some stunning water photography from around the globe.
The film begins with a rescue team working frantically to pull out a car that has fallen through the ice. When the camera finally does pull back, we see the vast space of the lake covered in ice. Other cars speed across the frozen body of water as if it's a sport or thrill for the driver. When another mishap occurs, we realize the tragedy is blamed on ice that has melted "3 weeks" earlier than usual. So we brace ourselves for another lecture on climate change.
It's a lecture that never comes. Surprisingly, there is no narrator. Perhaps Morgan Freeman signed a non-compete with the penguins. Kossakovsky allows the camera and nature to show the story, albeit with periodic musical accompaniment from composer Eicca Toppinen - sometimes with heavy metal chords, sometimes with soothing strings. Filmed in Greenland, Venezuela, Siberia (Lake Baikal), and Miami, Florida, where we see the effect of Hurricane Irma, water is shown in its glory. At times peaceful, at times violent. A sailboat captain fighting a storm might be followed by a breath-taking waterfall, which might be followed by a flooded town ... and even a swimming horse is photographed underwater.
Waves, glaciers, whales and dolphins combine for an unusual cinematic experience, and the most staggering sound comes courtesy of the ice moaning and water running. It's one best enjoyed with theatre screen and sound, and a film that will likely lose something even on the finest home systems. Filmed at 94 frames per second (rather than industry norm of 24 or 48), the visuals are truly breathtaking ... and sometimes disorienting. As George (on "Seinfeld") once said, "The sea was angry that day, my friend"; and now we have witnessed the anger for ourselves.
The film begins with a rescue team working frantically to pull out a car that has fallen through the ice. When the camera finally does pull back, we see the vast space of the lake covered in ice. Other cars speed across the frozen body of water as if it's a sport or thrill for the driver. When another mishap occurs, we realize the tragedy is blamed on ice that has melted "3 weeks" earlier than usual. So we brace ourselves for another lecture on climate change.
It's a lecture that never comes. Surprisingly, there is no narrator. Perhaps Morgan Freeman signed a non-compete with the penguins. Kossakovsky allows the camera and nature to show the story, albeit with periodic musical accompaniment from composer Eicca Toppinen - sometimes with heavy metal chords, sometimes with soothing strings. Filmed in Greenland, Venezuela, Siberia (Lake Baikal), and Miami, Florida, where we see the effect of Hurricane Irma, water is shown in its glory. At times peaceful, at times violent. A sailboat captain fighting a storm might be followed by a breath-taking waterfall, which might be followed by a flooded town ... and even a swimming horse is photographed underwater.
Waves, glaciers, whales and dolphins combine for an unusual cinematic experience, and the most staggering sound comes courtesy of the ice moaning and water running. It's one best enjoyed with theatre screen and sound, and a film that will likely lose something even on the finest home systems. Filmed at 94 frames per second (rather than industry norm of 24 or 48), the visuals are truly breathtaking ... and sometimes disorienting. As George (on "Seinfeld") once said, "The sea was angry that day, my friend"; and now we have witnessed the anger for ourselves.
A mesmerising film
beckypolska30 August 2021
I watched this at home, curious as to what was happening at the beginning. As the film progressed and showed the enormity and awesome beauty of water, in all its forms, was amazing. The score was non intrusive and well suited to what was being portrayed. Camera angles and cinematography was excellent in showing how water is an indomitable force of nature. Ideal slow detailed film with awesome scenes that stays with you long afterwards.
It's good, but not that good
james-zd1 March 2020
It's an impressive documentary, the first 30 minutes in particular is great however i feel it is so loose and lacking in narrative that the last 30 minutes I wasn't that bothered...its a cinematic feat though and deserves credit for the cinematography alone
i n c r e d i b l e Film
tom-79631 January 2019
I saw it at Sundance a couple of days ago. I was enthralled by it and sad when it ended. The opening is narratively engaging, yes, with humans and story. That is fascinating, but the film really gets going when it get's past any promise of overall narrative, and begins with its true purpose: to offer a privileged window into the true awesomeness of the water on this planet. Frozen, still, turbulent, graceful, violent, beautiful, it is all there, painstakingly captured with top shelf equipment and cinematography. It is a cinematic poem and of visual glory, awe-inspiring power and incredible natural sounds, mixed and designed in Dolby Atmos surround. The sound is immersive in a way that no other film I have seen has been, and it invites one to surrender and sink into the film. It is not a narrative journey, but a visual and sensual one, that allows time and space to contemplate part of the world we live in, both in celebration and contemplation of human's impact. It is not an overtly environmentalist film, other than to remind us of the power and beauty of nature, and to show some of how we interact with it.
There are moments where the film is scored, with Finnish heavy metal. This worked very well. I had the impression that power chords and distortion may be the only fitting texture to score images of such raw power as thousands of tons of turbulent waves of water.
The visuals sometimes get abstract in a beautiful way that reminds me of the films of Stan Brakhage, specifically Mothlight and Window Water Baby Moving. Again, it invites one to just let it wash over you, and to enjoy the ride.
I can't wait to see this film again, next time hopefully in true 96 fps, which I understand unlocks an entirely new visual experience.
I fully expected an uproarious standing ovation at the end of the screening. I was surprised to hear an average reaction from the crowd. I think people need to approach film with more openness and patience, and not fall into the trap of judging it in the narrow context of "entertainment". This is a cinematic poem on an epic scale and I am so very grateful for its creation.
WOW Shock and awe of mother nature
sfdphd15 April 2019
Enterprising theater owners will make this a midnight movie, especially in states where cannabis is legal. I saw the film completely sober at the SF Film Festival, at a Dolby cinema where the intense visuals and sound made me feel high as a kite. It was like a rollercoaster that I wanted to ride again as soon as it was over. Whew! My mouth was hanging open and and my eyebrows at their highest height for the whole movie. Parts of it were like a horror film, parts of it were psychedelic, parts of it were just spectacularly beautiful.
There's no narrative, no plot, no dialogue. It's just pure experience. Cinema to stimulate your senses and your ability to perceive the grandeur of the earth. At the end I felt the film was a eulogy for the planet, something that should be put in a time capsule so that someday other creatures would be able to see what this planet was and think what a shame that humans ruined that place.
I assume that most people will miss out on this film but it really should be seen by everyone who still has the ability to grasp what is happening with climate change. Kudos to the cinematographer and the director. This film should win awards. I wish I could see it again and again.... If this film doesn't inspire environmental activism I don't know what will. I hope Al Gore sees it and promotes it on his tours...
There's no narrative, no plot, no dialogue. It's just pure experience. Cinema to stimulate your senses and your ability to perceive the grandeur of the earth. At the end I felt the film was a eulogy for the planet, something that should be put in a time capsule so that someday other creatures would be able to see what this planet was and think what a shame that humans ruined that place.
I assume that most people will miss out on this film but it really should be seen by everyone who still has the ability to grasp what is happening with climate change. Kudos to the cinematographer and the director. This film should win awards. I wish I could see it again and again.... If this film doesn't inspire environmental activism I don't know what will. I hope Al Gore sees it and promotes it on his tours...
An hour of shots containing just water and ice isn't very compelling.
dugdalescott25 February 2019
Warning: Spoilers
The first 20 minutes had me hooked. The sound was incredible detailed and the visuals were truly stunning. The camera follows the story of a team who were helping to recover cars and people who had fell through a frozen lake. A man was trapped under ice and they frantically try to get him out.
And then it just cuts away. No conclusion, no payoff. This is when I realised what type of film I was watching.
The following hour features repetitive shots of water and ice, with an equally repetitive soundtrack and audio.
I am definitely the wrong audience (I can only assume), but I gained nothing from watching this absolute slog of a film.
And then it just cuts away. No conclusion, no payoff. This is when I realised what type of film I was watching.
The following hour features repetitive shots of water and ice, with an equally repetitive soundtrack and audio.
I am definitely the wrong audience (I can only assume), but I gained nothing from watching this absolute slog of a film.
Entertaining, but often not spectacular
TheLastPersonStanding28 August 2019
My favourite film is "Koyaanisqatsi", which is a documentary about nature and urban life. It's probably not a well-known film, but that doesn't matter to me. I absolutely love it and it made me cry the first time I saw it. When I went to see "Aquarela", I was hoping it would be like "Koyaanisqatsi" and I guess you could say it's kinda similar, but it didn't blow me away. I feel a bit disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high? I dunno, but I still enjoyed it.
"Aquarela" is basically a documentary about water and ice. Like "Koyaanisqatsi", there's no narration. We're just shown footage of water and ice, among other things, like people boating and people getting cars out of water and ice. There's a scene where I think people are trying to rescue someone who may be drowning. You don't see them successfully rescue that person or recover a body. Did the person die? Maybe the filmmakers know, but you don't, at least just by watching the film. Is it fair to criticize the fact that you don't find out? Granted, you don't know anything about this person, but after the film is over, you might still be thinking about him or her. I don't know if there's a message or a dedication in the end credits.
I feel disappointed that you don't hear that much music to go along with the footage, but when you do hear music, it's pretty good. The footage itself is nice to look at. You see waves of water, ice falling, etc. There were only a few times when I thought the footage looked utterly amazing, though. There is one part that I had trouble watching because it was quite overwhelming for my eyes and not in a good way, but I'm not sure how to distinguish that part from other footage in the film.
Does "Aquarela" have anything to do with climate change? I'm not sure. You can think about that yourself if you see the film. This is probably one of those films that isn't for everyone. Maybe you'll be really bored watching it, but I wasn't. I liked it. Some of the footage is really quite breathtaking and when there's music, it suits the footage. I think I might've liked the film more if there was a lot more music.
"Aquarela" is basically a documentary about water and ice. Like "Koyaanisqatsi", there's no narration. We're just shown footage of water and ice, among other things, like people boating and people getting cars out of water and ice. There's a scene where I think people are trying to rescue someone who may be drowning. You don't see them successfully rescue that person or recover a body. Did the person die? Maybe the filmmakers know, but you don't, at least just by watching the film. Is it fair to criticize the fact that you don't find out? Granted, you don't know anything about this person, but after the film is over, you might still be thinking about him or her. I don't know if there's a message or a dedication in the end credits.
I feel disappointed that you don't hear that much music to go along with the footage, but when you do hear music, it's pretty good. The footage itself is nice to look at. You see waves of water, ice falling, etc. There were only a few times when I thought the footage looked utterly amazing, though. There is one part that I had trouble watching because it was quite overwhelming for my eyes and not in a good way, but I'm not sure how to distinguish that part from other footage in the film.
Does "Aquarela" have anything to do with climate change? I'm not sure. You can think about that yourself if you see the film. This is probably one of those films that isn't for everyone. Maybe you'll be really bored watching it, but I wasn't. I liked it. Some of the footage is really quite breathtaking and when there's music, it suits the footage. I think I might've liked the film more if there was a lot more music.
Outstanding nature documentary: water is truly a force of nature
paul-allaer5 October 2019
"Aquarela" (2018 release from Denmark; 89 min.) is a documentary about water, in its many forms and facets. As the movie opens, we see 3-4 guys walking gingerly on ice, and looking for something. That something turns out to be a car that has sunk into the lake when the ice gave way, and eventually they are able to retrieve the car from the lake. Later on, we see another car partially submerged, and then, incredibly, we see a car driven on the ice, only to be swallowed by the lake. At this point we are 10 min. into the film.
Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from Russian director VIctor Kossakovsky. Here he brings a 90 min. visual spectacle, without any voice-over or any other information, about water. I tried to figure out where the entire opening scene about the guys retrieving cars from the frozen pond took place, but couldn't. There is no overall narrative as such, the film simply focuses on water. The segment about icebergs shedding large sections of ice is fascinating. Not to imply that other segments aren't good, far from it. The movie really brings home the point that water truly is a force of nature. It amazes how noisy and forceful it is. Needless to say, the photography is eye-candy from start to finish. For outsized documentaries like this one, one might expect the original score to play an equally outsized role, but that is not the case here. There isn't much music in the film, and the music that is there is from none other that Finnish instrumental heavy metal band Apocalyptica! Wow.
"Aquarela" premiered at this year's Sundance film festival to good acclaim. It finally showed this weekend at my local art-house theater here in CIncinnati, and I couldn't wait to see it. The Saturday matinee screening where I saw this at was attended dismally (4 people). That's a darn shame if you ask me. If you like a "bigger than life" nature documentary, I'd readily suggest you check out "Aquarela", be it in the theatre (if you still can), on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.
Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from Russian director VIctor Kossakovsky. Here he brings a 90 min. visual spectacle, without any voice-over or any other information, about water. I tried to figure out where the entire opening scene about the guys retrieving cars from the frozen pond took place, but couldn't. There is no overall narrative as such, the film simply focuses on water. The segment about icebergs shedding large sections of ice is fascinating. Not to imply that other segments aren't good, far from it. The movie really brings home the point that water truly is a force of nature. It amazes how noisy and forceful it is. Needless to say, the photography is eye-candy from start to finish. For outsized documentaries like this one, one might expect the original score to play an equally outsized role, but that is not the case here. There isn't much music in the film, and the music that is there is from none other that Finnish instrumental heavy metal band Apocalyptica! Wow.
"Aquarela" premiered at this year's Sundance film festival to good acclaim. It finally showed this weekend at my local art-house theater here in CIncinnati, and I couldn't wait to see it. The Saturday matinee screening where I saw this at was attended dismally (4 people). That's a darn shame if you ask me. If you like a "bigger than life" nature documentary, I'd readily suggest you check out "Aquarela", be it in the theatre (if you still can), on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.
Nice idea but boring execution
igoldan29 January 2019
Saw it at Sundance 2019. There is no plot, and it's all about water in different aspects. I don't have anything against plotless films, as long as they are engaging and interesting. This film definitely has beautiful cinematography and some interesting scenes, but there is too many similar frames with water, so that after some point it becomes boring. Some narration or story would help. It started with scenes on Lake Baikal that involved humans and some stories. That part was great. But then it dies out and transforms into pure water scenes.
Well shot but pointless
bastos12 November 2020
I really didn't like this movie. It starts off with some kind of rescue operation, with some very impressive imagery, but the lack of context and information render this section a bit pointless and hard to invest emotionally. The rest of the movie is just images of water around the world in various shapes and forms, again with no context or information. Movies like Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka come to mind while watching a movie like this, but the imagery in this movie, while good, pales in comparison with the before mentioned masterpieces, and if you're not invested emotionally the cinematography should be jaw dropping. But if you like to watch a movie while contemplating about your life and what groceries you need to shop for tomorrow's dinner, this is the movie for you.
Noisy and not comprehensible
whernstadt18 August 2019
Nature is and always has been more powerful than the plants and animals that inhabit it. This Russian film has some pretty scenes but the backround noise and music are disquieting. Yes global warming is real, and suffering takes place and the face of despair is real. I have no idea what the writers and directors are trying to do.
Don't waste you time with this one.
Poor Cinematography
mjdk230 July 2020
There are very good documentaries about nature, unfortunately this isn't one of them (eg Evolution 4K).
The cinematography is lacking at best, essentially a compilation of amateur videographer clips spliced together and supported by music that does not flow well with the scenes. There is no narrative and all you do is look at an assortment of incoherent water related scenes.
Water deserves much, much more
meterdo8 February 2020
Great Subject, maybe the greatest on this planet, drives you to great expectations, but at the end leaves you with great disappointment. I have personally been in some of the locations like Baikal, Arctic Ocean, Sweden, Canadian North Pacific, Great Lakes including Niagara Falls. I didn't have even a fraction of feelings I had compared to what was when I first been there.
Aesthetic recklessness
nehpetstephen27 December 2019
This film tries to overwhelm with the sublimity of nature, but the sublime is ultimately an enfeebling, passive experience, and what the world doesn't need right now is another passive art film.
AQUARELA is ostensibly about climate change and how that will influence humanity--but what that effect is and how we should respond to it essentially boils down to one giant shrug by the time the film ends.
This isn't true of the film's opening scenes in Russia, which are entrancing and devastating. In the opening, with its scarce dialogue, the viewer gradually realizes that a rescue team must work full time to save people and vehicles from the ice. Normally, this ice would be frozen a full three weeks longer, allowing people to drive across it as a shortcut. These routines are interrupted, however, by the changing climate, and the rather brutal impact of that abrupt change is captured on camera. The opening scenes capture the truth of this global moment: that the world is changing quickly, that those changes have already begun to be devastating to certain human and nonhuman communities, and that those changes are going to continue to get worse and have increasingly miserable effects if major remediation does not begin immediately.
Once those opening scenes are over, however, the film devolves into narrative-free splendor--to very poor effect. Greenland glaciers crumble to heavy metal music. A woman in a boat does... something amidst heavy waves. Dolphins frolic, hunting for prey. People cower in a cave during a downpour. A Miami hurricane empties out the streets and whips palm trees into a frenzy. And Angel Falls in Venezuela dissolves into mist and rainbows.
This is all gorgeous, yes, and the music is pretty cool, but the overall effect of this decontextualized music video is to force viewers into a simple acceptance that nature is powerful and cool and beautiful. If one is of a Judeo-Christian background, then the rainbow at the end cannot help but remind one of the covenant made after Noah's Flood--that God will never again destroy the Earth by water. Does that mean our bases are covered, then? Are we in the clear? Is there nothing to worry about?
Sublimity in art is the presentation of massive, jaw-dropping splendor. The viewer cannot respond except with trembling awe and respect. (Given the hydro themes of the film, I'm reminded of the process of sublimation, when solid ice is exposed to a force so hot that it instantly converts to gaseous steam without first passing through the intermediate liquid phase. The sublime sublimates us--turns our minds from thoughts of this solid, material earth to matters of pure spirit.) The sublime is an entrancing experience, but its antithetical to any actual thought or action. With the sublime, we are told that our puny lives are inconsequential against the grand innerworkings of the cosmos. Like Job quaking before the Leviathan, we must accept that we cannot fathom the truth of things and so we should simply stick to smaller concerns.
All that may be so, but such a mindset masks the extent to which human systems, human choices, human lifestyles, human actions have played an enormous role in causing our present environmental crisis. A sublime worldview, like the one this film presents, not only masks that culpability--in doing so, it absolves us of all guilt and excuses us from not bothering to come up with solutions.
Humanity will one day probably cease to exist, but life will still continue to thrive, and the Earth will remain a fearsome and majestic place. Perhaps the film wants to decenter us from our anthropocentric concerns and force us to view the wonders of nature from a broader geologic scale. The hurricane scene in Miami may be bereft of any human presence, but the herons look like they're doing just fine, and I'm sure the gators are having the time of their lives.
At this point in time, however--a point when humans have already set in motion these catastrophic changes yet all hope is not yet quite lost--it seems a little dangerous to be abandoning oneself to such nihilism without sufficiently attending to the immense cost--both human and non-human--that such change is bringing about. This film is similar to Godfrey Reggio's KOYAANISQATSI, but whereas that film forces us to consider and judge the ways in which human civilization has shaped and distorted the natural contours of the earth, AQUARELA is content to simply let us revel in our folly, mistaking it for transcendence.
AQUARELA is ostensibly about climate change and how that will influence humanity--but what that effect is and how we should respond to it essentially boils down to one giant shrug by the time the film ends.
This isn't true of the film's opening scenes in Russia, which are entrancing and devastating. In the opening, with its scarce dialogue, the viewer gradually realizes that a rescue team must work full time to save people and vehicles from the ice. Normally, this ice would be frozen a full three weeks longer, allowing people to drive across it as a shortcut. These routines are interrupted, however, by the changing climate, and the rather brutal impact of that abrupt change is captured on camera. The opening scenes capture the truth of this global moment: that the world is changing quickly, that those changes have already begun to be devastating to certain human and nonhuman communities, and that those changes are going to continue to get worse and have increasingly miserable effects if major remediation does not begin immediately.
Once those opening scenes are over, however, the film devolves into narrative-free splendor--to very poor effect. Greenland glaciers crumble to heavy metal music. A woman in a boat does... something amidst heavy waves. Dolphins frolic, hunting for prey. People cower in a cave during a downpour. A Miami hurricane empties out the streets and whips palm trees into a frenzy. And Angel Falls in Venezuela dissolves into mist and rainbows.
This is all gorgeous, yes, and the music is pretty cool, but the overall effect of this decontextualized music video is to force viewers into a simple acceptance that nature is powerful and cool and beautiful. If one is of a Judeo-Christian background, then the rainbow at the end cannot help but remind one of the covenant made after Noah's Flood--that God will never again destroy the Earth by water. Does that mean our bases are covered, then? Are we in the clear? Is there nothing to worry about?
Sublimity in art is the presentation of massive, jaw-dropping splendor. The viewer cannot respond except with trembling awe and respect. (Given the hydro themes of the film, I'm reminded of the process of sublimation, when solid ice is exposed to a force so hot that it instantly converts to gaseous steam without first passing through the intermediate liquid phase. The sublime sublimates us--turns our minds from thoughts of this solid, material earth to matters of pure spirit.) The sublime is an entrancing experience, but its antithetical to any actual thought or action. With the sublime, we are told that our puny lives are inconsequential against the grand innerworkings of the cosmos. Like Job quaking before the Leviathan, we must accept that we cannot fathom the truth of things and so we should simply stick to smaller concerns.
All that may be so, but such a mindset masks the extent to which human systems, human choices, human lifestyles, human actions have played an enormous role in causing our present environmental crisis. A sublime worldview, like the one this film presents, not only masks that culpability--in doing so, it absolves us of all guilt and excuses us from not bothering to come up with solutions.
Humanity will one day probably cease to exist, but life will still continue to thrive, and the Earth will remain a fearsome and majestic place. Perhaps the film wants to decenter us from our anthropocentric concerns and force us to view the wonders of nature from a broader geologic scale. The hurricane scene in Miami may be bereft of any human presence, but the herons look like they're doing just fine, and I'm sure the gators are having the time of their lives.
At this point in time, however--a point when humans have already set in motion these catastrophic changes yet all hope is not yet quite lost--it seems a little dangerous to be abandoning oneself to such nihilism without sufficiently attending to the immense cost--both human and non-human--that such change is bringing about. This film is similar to Godfrey Reggio's KOYAANISQATSI, but whereas that film forces us to consider and judge the ways in which human civilization has shaped and distorted the natural contours of the earth, AQUARELA is content to simply let us revel in our folly, mistaking it for transcendence.
Mixed, but well worth watching if you can get past a couple of less desirable elements...
scubafiend17 November 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Spoilers:
The Good: Mostly spectacular cinematography - truly amazing.
The Bad: Horrible soundtrack. I bought it streaming and was able to mute it, but the music - annoying, inappropriate, and migraine inducing. Unfortunately, muting it to eliminate the "music" also eliminated the sound of the water/waves/etc. It is also inconsistent - there are parts with just the sound of the ice crackling or the waves crashing, but then for no apparent reason this horrible, discordant "music" would start and destroy any sense of experience.
The Puzzling: Parts just make no sense. Like the beginning. I still don't get the point they are trying to make other than that the ice is melting sooner by three weeks - so why do people insist on driving across it resulting in loss of cars and life??? Regardless, that section is too long and I was left wondering what was going on until they found the first car. Additionally, there is no context and transitions are abrupt. Adding transitions from one "segment" to the next that included some context would have allowed me to enjoy it a lot more - to immerse myself in the experience instead of focusing on trying to work out where it was filmed, the purpose, and what was happening.
Summary: I think you have to be an idiot to deny climate change is happening and that the implications are huge. But if that is the sole intended message of the film, I did not find it clear other than in the beginning watching icebergs calving and during the Miami hurricane. My recommendation is to skip past the first 10-15 minutes and mute the soundtrack, just play your own wave SFX while you watch.
The Bad: Horrible soundtrack. I bought it streaming and was able to mute it, but the music - annoying, inappropriate, and migraine inducing. Unfortunately, muting it to eliminate the "music" also eliminated the sound of the water/waves/etc. It is also inconsistent - there are parts with just the sound of the ice crackling or the waves crashing, but then for no apparent reason this horrible, discordant "music" would start and destroy any sense of experience.
The Puzzling: Parts just make no sense. Like the beginning. I still don't get the point they are trying to make other than that the ice is melting sooner by three weeks - so why do people insist on driving across it resulting in loss of cars and life??? Regardless, that section is too long and I was left wondering what was going on until they found the first car. Additionally, there is no context and transitions are abrupt. Adding transitions from one "segment" to the next that included some context would have allowed me to enjoy it a lot more - to immerse myself in the experience instead of focusing on trying to work out where it was filmed, the purpose, and what was happening.
Summary: I think you have to be an idiot to deny climate change is happening and that the implications are huge. But if that is the sole intended message of the film, I did not find it clear other than in the beginning watching icebergs calving and during the Miami hurricane. My recommendation is to skip past the first 10-15 minutes and mute the soundtrack, just play your own wave SFX while you watch.
Just bizarre
markfranh26 August 2021
I was expecting something akin to the 1992 film Baraka the way it was promoted but it was anything but.
The first 20+ minutes were just strange. A bunch of Russians recovering cars from beneath the ice and struggling to do so. Why? Who cares? Why were the cars under the ice?
Well, we will never find out as my wife begged me to skip forward and see if it improved from that the whole thing was so tedious and uninteresting so I jumped to about 30 minutes in. Better with the scenes of the glacier and calving but the film quality wasn't particularly good (might just have been the version we were watching) and showed us nothing we hadn't seen before so we decided we just couldn't be bothered and gave up at that point.
Disappointing, to say the least. Highly overrated and eminently missable.
The first 20+ minutes were just strange. A bunch of Russians recovering cars from beneath the ice and struggling to do so. Why? Who cares? Why were the cars under the ice?
Well, we will never find out as my wife begged me to skip forward and see if it improved from that the whole thing was so tedious and uninteresting so I jumped to about 30 minutes in. Better with the scenes of the glacier and calving but the film quality wasn't particularly good (might just have been the version we were watching) and showed us nothing we hadn't seen before so we decided we just couldn't be bothered and gave up at that point.
Disappointing, to say the least. Highly overrated and eminently missable.
Nothing for real fans of water
orionschwert8 April 2020
I had high hopes and lots of smiles on my face like from a kid seeing its Christmas presents under the tree. I was so excited. A film was made about the beauty and power of water. A film about the most underrated and most alien substance on this planet. And then this. A boring and badly crafted film with the looks of a web-cam build up on different locations. At least some indications of the areas would have been nice. It had some interesting moments, like the opening scenes on the Baikal (?), some wave patterns and some of the impressively moving ice bergs. But you could feel how they struggled to fill 90 minutes. It was so boring sometimes, you could have shrink it down to 20 minutes. I was hoping for a BARAKA about water and became a film of somebody who needed money ? Or he lost a bet ? I have no idea.
And what shocked me (proof to you that I watched it entirely) is the amount of people and film associations involved in this. I thought I will find the 3 or 4 people guilty of this in the credits but there where hundreds and hundreds of people named. How is this possible for such an waste of time ? To be diplomatic I could say "this was a lost opportunity to create something great" but it was worse than that.
Aquarela
henry8-326 August 2021
'Documentary' looking at the power and beauty of water across the globe, showing the devastation it can cause, the loss of life, the enjoyment and finally the beauty.
After a fascinating, rather bewildering start that is ultimately quite upsetting, the film photographs, often stunningly, ice and water in various forms. Much of this is almost hypnotising and surreal, some of it goes on too long, but in the end it's an enjoyable and eye opening ride.
Wasn't remotely a fan of the soundtrack.
After a fascinating, rather bewildering start that is ultimately quite upsetting, the film photographs, often stunningly, ice and water in various forms. Much of this is almost hypnotising and surreal, some of it goes on too long, but in the end it's an enjoyable and eye opening ride.
Wasn't remotely a fan of the soundtrack.
If the producers of film asked for allowness to film the people on Baikal accident?
hrzkufgdkxcwqxzlon17 July 2020
I completely dont like the artists/ regisseurs who is filming the private situation of the people without any allowness for this. In Europe/ America etc. the filmed people just will to to the cord. Why some european regisseurs think they can do it abroad???? They just do there money and say: WOW it is an art!! What art is it if the people in another part of the world just have a very hard life???
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