Oscar nominated documentarian returns with another nature doc “Time and Water”.
Following on from her highly acclaimed, Fire of Love (2022, currently available on Disney+), Sara Dosa returns to nature to tell an evocative tale about how we connect to nature, and how it connects to us.
Combining with Icelandic writer, Andri Snaer Magnason; together through the extensive archive he and his family have accrued over the last century, it tells the story of Iceland’s glaciers and how they are slowing dying due to climate change.
This dying and slow melting of ice caps that were once as huge as skyscrapers, slowly evaporating before our eyes in real time – this film serves as a time capsule and is an attempt to hold on to what is slipping away – family, memory, time and water.
This temporal state that Dosa and Magnason depicts is highly charged, while the nostalgia swells to the surface this is merely the tip of the iceberg. There is an anger underneath the surface as native Icelandic souls think of the icecaps and glaciers as a major part of their country’s identity as well as their own.
It is a psychological connection to a structure or monument (much like 9/11, the towers were something that you saw everyday and felt connected to as it endorsed your city/country with an identity to the world – if one day it is not there it would and does cause irreparable harm to the consciousness. Time and place does so much for memory, and partnered with natural beauty which we should endeavour to maintain and harness this power it has on those facets of our personality.
A swift running time helps and the archive footage from Magnason’s family is wonderful; the message of conservationism and protection is paramount to the film. Unfortunately, the evidence of the glaciers disappearing means the message may already have fallen on death ears.
Nevertheless, the film has a delicate narration by Magnason to guide us on a very personal journey through a family and country’s history. While Dosa does not reach the heights of Fire of Love which touched upon volcanoes, she remains a talent to watch.
Time And Water is out on Friday 12th June from Dogwoof Pictures.
My thanks to All Good Things for the review opportunity.
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