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<< Previous   of   Next >> (click to enlarge) A scene from the documentary 'FLOW,' which examines how corporations have made water into a commodity, and how that affects Third World nations.   ADVERTISEMENT   "FLOW" (3 stars) Water is the new oil: Documentary about the Earth's water being re-purposed as a saleable commodity, with the expected broadsides against giant corporations--richly deserved, in this case. The movie's more of a collection of stories than a single argument, and it has some of the weaknesses of this kind of documentary, but the messages gets across. Rated: No rating, probably PG for subject matter Now showing: Varsity theater.   CONTACT THE HERALD Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com   Published: Friday, November 7, 2008 Documentary studies the making of world's water into a commodity By Robert Horton Herald Movie Critic And you thought the shower scene in "Psycho" was scary? How about the people in India whose water supply has been so polluted that the average shower brings on rashes and boils? This is one of the anecdotes offered in "FLOW," a wet-blanket report on how the Earth's water supply is being co-opted as a saleable commodity. Water is the new oil. (The letters in the title stand for "For Love of Water.") Perhaps you thought that water came from the sky and the rivers and therefore does not have an owner? What are you, some kind of socialist? Or have you never bought a bottle of water, the quality of which is no better (and in some cases worse) than the stuff that comes out of the tap? "Flow" gets into such ironies, but its aim is mostly at those familiar villains of independent documentaries: big multi-national corporations and the World Bank. Director Irena Salina, who spent five years traveling around the world gathering her stories, succeeds in outlining specific cases. First she establishes the nastiness of even U.S. drinking water (our country still embraces a particular Swiss-made herbicide that causes demasculinization in frogs when it gets into the water supply, which it easily does). No, that wasn't "desalinization," which is another issue for water activists. That's "demasculization," as in losing male characteristics. That might be good news for choirs needing male sopranos, but not so good in general. Other stories are like little "60 Minutes" segments, including a tale about a Nestle bottled-water operation setting up shop in Michigan and (complete with huge tax breaks and sweetheart leasing deals) pulling out hundreds of thousands of gallons of water from the ground and wrecking rivers and wells in the vicinity. Which brings up a political reality I always find bewildering. The people fighting this stuff are always stereotyped as lefty hippie environmentalists, when the folks who ought to be on the front lines (and voting correspondingly) are farmers, NRA members, fishermen, and small-town landowners. They're the ones getting hammered by the corporations on this issue. "FLOW" has some of the weaknesses of this kind of documentary, such as too much music telling us how to feel, and the inevitable third-act montage about hope for the future. The film also includes a long passage it attributes to Chief Seattle, a famous piece of stirring rhetoric that was actually written by a screenwriter in the 1970s but is frequently passed off as real. A quick Google search would have cleared that up. Still, the creepiness of the water industry comes through loud and clear. Just ask the frogs. READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. You must be a registered user and verify your e-mail address to post comments to blogs or articles on HeraldNet. To register, click here. To read other terms and conditions, click here. Log out

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