| Audience: | Middle School |
| MPAA Rating: | NR |
| Profanity: | None |
| Nudity/Sex: | None |
| Alcohol/Drugs: | None |
| Violence/Scariness: | Disturbing material about water contamination and shortages, brief footage of riots |
| Diversity Issues: | A theme of the movie |
| Movie Release Date: | September 19, 2008 |
Americans take for granted our most precious and vital resource. We assume that when we turn on the tap, the water that comes out will be perfectly safe and more than plentiful, endless. And then there are those rows and rows of pristine water in bottles on our grocery store shelves.
But it isn't safe and it isn't endless. If global warming creates floods, many of us can move to higher ground. If we run out of oil, many of us can walk. But if we run out of water, it is all over for everyone just about immediately.
This documentary finds a good balance between terrifying statistics, depressing images, talking heads, and hopeful suggestions. The bad guys, according to the film, are the corporations who sell bottled water, removing it from communities by diminishing their sources for water so they can sell it back to them. And in a telling segment, we learn that the World Bank is better at giving away a billion dollars to build an ineffective water treatment facility that disrupts the local economy and ecology than they are at working toward lower-tech, lower-impact, lower-cost solutions. No one who sees this movie will think the same way again about reaching for that line of clear bottles at the grocery store or letting the shower run while you take a phone call. Ideally, no one who sees this movie will ever vote for a candidate again without finding out what he or she will do to keep our water safe and plentiful.
Parents should know that this movie has some disturbing material, though it ends on a hopeful note.
Families who see this movie should talk about their own water consumption and how they can most effectively address the issues raised in this film at home and in the world. They should learn more about The UN General Assembly's declaration of 2008 as the year of sanitation, the most recent in a series of initiatives devoted to water over the past 16 years. "The goal is to raise awareness and to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to reduce by half the proportion of the 2,6 billion people without access to basic sanitation by 2015." The film is critical of the World Bank's water programs. Write to envhelpdesk@worldbank.org for more information.
If you like this, try: "The Corporation," which has some additional information about the riots in Bolivia, and An Inconvenient Truth
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I was going to see this, but I didn't want to get out of our pool. And then I had to water the lawn - it had only been watered three times this week. While I was doing that a bird pooped on the car, so I had to wash it again - you would think once a week would be enough. Then the kids wanted to play with the dog on the "Slip 'n Slide". When I was putting all six of the SuperSoaker 5000s away I noticed the driveway was covered with leaves, so I took a half hour to hose it all down. Maybe I'll get to the movie tomorrow. It sounds really important.
Yeah this doesn't seem very interesting at all... I hadn't even heard of it today, and only because my video production teacher heard this critic on the radio. I'd peg this as a definite "Don't bother seeing" because the review sums it up and seems about as interesting as the film itself.
I suspect this documental (FLOW: For Love of Water) goes more like under the category of a MUST SEE type of movie.
Humanity survived well for millenia without the black gold. Maybe we could do it again! OK, maybe ... but with mayor water problems???
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