One Water (2008) is a documentary that sneaked up on me. At first I acknowledged the poetry in the approach to the issue of clean water for people on earth, but the movie seemed a bit slow. Ah, but just slow enough to get me to settle down into the rhythm of life as lived by many peoples in the 14 countries visited. At first I liked the original sound track played by the Russian National Orchestra, but then I realized the wonderful role the music played in supporting scenes where there was almost no speaking or narration. At first I wondered why we jumped from people bathing in the Ganges River in India to a fellow chipping ice on a mountain in Ecuador and then to . . ., but I soon realized that I was seeing the roles water played in the lives of ordinary people in different countries.
For me the film packed a punch near the end when it intercut the birth of a baby in Africa with icebergs floating in the ocean. At this point, no narration or editorializing was needed. I wondered how many kilometres the mother would have to walk for water each day. I wondered if she’d have to give her child contaminated water because no other was available. More broadly, we are leaving the planet in a mess—short of water, too much contaminated water, dangerous inequity in the distribution of water, conflict over whether water is a right or a commodity. As I drove home, I thought that in Shakespeare’s time (1590s), they did not understand how the plague was transmitted, so it killed thousands and thousands; but in the modern world we know exactly what we are doing, yet keep on abusing the resource that comprises 70% of our bodies and our planet.
Oddly, this commendable, creative, and important film is the product of a university. The University of Miami provided everyone from director to cinematographer to composer to the narrator (the President of the University). The producers supplemented grants from the Provost and the Dean with numerous private foundation donations. They got the cooperation of some big names for commentary: the 14th Dalai Lama, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, Vandana Shiva, and Maude Barlow. Working over 5 years on a budget of just under a million dollars, the professors did what universities should do: They raised an important issue—Is clean water a right or a privilege?—in a responsible and interesting manner.
For more information, visit www.onewaterthemovie.org