There's Something in the Water" doesn't break any molds in terms of documentary form, and it's less impressive as cinema than activism. But it's easily digestible and well researched, with the aid of Waldron's book.
There's Something in the Water
2019
Action / Documentary
There's Something in the Water
2019
Action / Documentary
Plot summary
Elliot Page and Gaycation collaborator Ian Daniel shift gears with the documentary There's Something in the Water, a disturbing and, frankly, terrifying portrait of ecological and social disasters in Page's native Nova Scotia. Based on Ingrid Waldron's incendiary study, the film follows Page as she travels to rural areas of the province that are plagued by toxic fallout from industrial development. As did Waldron, the filmmakers discover that these catastrophes have been precisely placed, all in remote, low income - and very often Indigenous or Black - communities. As the filmmakers observe, your postal code determines your health. We're introduced to many courageous women. Louise, from Shelburne, gives us a tour of a neighborhood in her hometown where every house has been affected by cancer. Michele fights to protect "A?se?k", or Boat Harbour, once a sanctuary for Indigenous people, now plagued by toxins spewed by a pulp and paper mill. The government only began addressing this when other whiter, wealthier communities were affected. (In one stomach-churning moment, it's explained that the company went to great effort to divert the offal towards "A?se?k".) And a group of "Mi?gmaq" activists known as The Grandmothers fight to protect a river threatened by a gas company. All of it is deeply sobering and scary, but like Page and Daniel we may find solace in the bravery of their subjects, who are the kind of resourceful and compassionate people you should place your bets on. If, as Louise poignantly asks, you don't care about other people, "What do you get up for every day?"
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Powerful
Hats off to Ellen Paige!
The previous reviewer obviously lacks a basic knowledge of the overwhelming statistical data which shows that marginal social status is directly related to the degree to which people are subject to hazardous living conditions. This is not liberal propaganda. This is fact. Cold, hard, fact. Any basic college (and any decent high school) text in sociology, anthropology, economics, or world geography would explain this. To not know this shows ignorance of basic real world economics.
To say that landfill land is cheap land is a Homer Simpson "Doh!" answer as well. Why does the reviewer think the land is cheap? Obviously, it isn't land that's good for much else. If it was, it would have been used for something else, or given to British men with the vote who could repay the grantor politically, not given to people of African descent who stayed loyal to the English Crown during the American Revolution. They were not British citizens as we would understand it. They couldn't vote. They were servants. They gained their freedom, they could earn a living, and they could start a town on some crappy land, but that was it. They had no political voice, and very little legal standing. I am no scholar of Canadian history, but I do know that until Canadian independence it was governed by English Common Law, and as non-land owners they had little say in government.
I had hoped that our neighbors to the north were more enlightened than we are when it came to treating people equally, but it seems that Canadians have the same problem with putting their dollars before human rights as we in the USA do.
Eye-Opening
This is an incredible documentary highlighting environmental racism. The deep effects of these systems of oppression was so eye-opening to see. Very well done