Review: It had to happen sometime- my streak of watching excellent documentaries finally came to an end- and let me tell you, watching Flow was like slamming my streak into a brick wall at 70 miles per hour. A little perspective on this poor review: I’ll knock a Michael Moore film because he’s the face of documentaries and I expect great things from the one person people think of when this genre is mentioned, I’ll also slam an Alex Gibney piece because I hold him in high regard. But with Flow, I flat out hated it- pure and simple, it is a terrible film/documentary/art form, what have you. Now, admittedly, I had low expectations going into Flow. The trailer pretty much accurately depicted what I was expecting: a dull, fear-mongoring documentary that predicts certain death unless we… well, I’m not sure what the film wants us to do. And there in lies one of my biggest complaints. Yes, I admit the way water is handled all over the world is not ideal, but please provide counter options. My belief for ‘whistle-blowing’ documentaries is you need at least one new solution for every idea you tear down. Flow provides only one solution throughout its entire hate fest, or about 5 minutes of hope for every 85 minutes of fear and hatred. Of course, I’d let this principle slide if there were adequate facts to support the claims made by its interviews. Instead you get comments like “according to research not open to the public” or “according to our predictions.” I mean, even the Bush administration provided evidence of their claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction! Information, story and research aside, the basic technical and production components of Flow are even worse. The scope of the project is too wide, ranging from midwestern United States to South America to Africa to India, etc. While I admit these all could be interesting stories, it ended up being this spastic world tour of water problems that told the audience little about each situation. Additionally, the camera work is grainy, shaky and flat out poor (someone tell the camera man that the an interview’s face should not take up the whole screen during the entire interview). Flow also drags on too long, missing the golden opportunity to end on a high note. I’ve never seen a film spend so much effort to build a hopeful, inspiring ending only to squander it with 20 more minutes of negativity. I can honestly say the best (and ironically most damning) part of this documentary occurs during the credits. No, not just because it signified the torture was over, but because spliced through the credits are engaging interviews and inspiring stories the director chose to ignore/cut-out of the actual film (I felt like I just finished a McDonald’s cheeseburger only to be offered a $45 filet). So unless you are in the mood for something unfulfilling and unbeneficial, I’d suggest avoiding Flow and having yourself a nice, cool-Brita-filtered- glass of water instead. Review by Matthew Abshire Informative: 2- the film tries to tackle too many issues and in most cases rarely uses facts/figures to support its claims Entertainment: 1 - the most captivating part of this documentary was the credits, and that's not an overstatement. Technical: 1 - poor direction, interview choices, shot selection and awful camera work/quality Overall: 1.5 - a perfect example of why anger and fear doesn't translate well into good production value
 
Format: Theaters Year: 2008 Running Time: 84 Min Distributor: The Entertainment Group and Oscilloscope Pictures Producer: Steven Starr Director: Irena Salina Date Reviewed: 10-20-2008 Story: From both local and global perspectives, this documentary examines the harsh realities behind the mounting water crisis. Learn how politics, pollution and human rights are intertwined in this important issue that affects every being on Earth. With water drying up around the world and the future of human lives at stake, the film urges a call to arms before more of our most precious natural resource evaporates (NetFlix).