Review of Flow: For Love of Water (2008) by Brianne S — 16 Jan 2009

Interesting subject (hey, Quantum of Solace did it); relatively boring documentary. Erstwhile activists have to do more than present a didactic 'multinational corporations are bad' powerpoint style documentary if they want people to walk away feeling anything other than depressed. It was information rich - but thematically not pulled together, and had little aesthetic impact. Compared to more successful documentaries with a political purpose (Who Killed the Electric Car springs to mind), it falls short in terms of drawing you in and engaging you. Like watching An Inconvenient Truth without the polar bears.

That said, water is a super interesting - and frightening - political arena. Food politics always depress me, because guilt has never successfully overridden pleasure for me, and water is even more basic and apparently more fragile.

Maude Barlow and Vandana Shiva are actually less annoying in this than you might expect.