Documentary – 92 minutes, 2013. Directed by Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky
Transporting us all over the world, Watermark reveals the extent to which humanity has shaped water, and how it has shaped us. In California, the vast, manmade All-American Canal diverts water from the Colorado River to urban centres. In India, the mass Hindu pilgrimage called the Kumbh Mela sees thirty million worshippers bathe in the sacred river at Allahabad in a single day. The images are incredible, taking something as commonplace as water and capturing it in curiously beautiful ways. Tributaries of the dried-up Colorado River look like stunning woodcuts of snow-covered trees, while the Xiluodu Dam release in China is reminiscent of Victorian painter J.M.W. Turner’s representation of natural forces.