The award-winning film ‘Watermark’ offers 90 minutes of intense enjoyment of the awesome beauty of water. A photographic journey through ten countries marked by their relationship with water enables you to experience how water forms us and how we form water. Following their successful collaboration for ‘Manufactured Landscapes’, director Baichwal and photographer Burtynsky have again delivered a unique visual gem.
Their filming of landscapes across the world is highly impressive. From the artificial, geometric forms of the agricultural landscape in California’s Imperial Valley to the winding contours of the rice terraces in China; every landscape has its own unique beauty. By weaving the various narratives together, Baichwal creates a number of remarkable contrasts in the uses of water the world over. Switching back and forth between various narratives also enables Baichwal to show how these narratives complement and reinforce each other. Burtynsky shows water as the primary necessity of life, a way of earning a living and a place to live. He also shows its role in religion and entertainment and that it is a source of pure aesthetic pleasure. ‘Watermark’ is a great experience: beautiful, fascinating and pleasantly intoxicating.