Such a frustrating disappointment

Powerful

Absolutely Fantastic

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is the sort of short film that probably makes geography teachers salivate! Heck, as a history teacher, I find it all rather interesting as well. This short film sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada illustrates why a flat map cannot accurately portray the planet's surface. Using a variety of illustrations using round objects (such as a grapefruit), they show that no matter how the map is drawn, once it is flattened a portion of the Earth is highly distorted.The problem, though, is that to students, this all will probably seem pretty boring--not just because of the subject matter but because of the style of the film. The narrator has no life at all in his voice and the film could have used more energy. Still, however, their use of stop-motion to create maps is impressive and with a bit of updating, this would be a great film.