What a beautiful movie!

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Stunningly beautiful and powerful images highlight this examination of how mankind re-shapes water and how it flows – for good and ill, more often ill - and in turn how the water re-shapes civilization and human behavior. There's no real story, just a series of visits to locations around the world where water powerfully interacts with humanity, like the pilgrimage of 30 million people to bathe in the Ganges river.Without narration and a specific focus the film could be accused of being too diffuse. But for me the raw power of the images – Burtynsky is one of our greatest still photographers who has spent much of his career creating huge images of humans and nature clashing and interacting - give the piece a poetic, if not literal power and solidity. Also, if the film is not enough, there's an almost 40 minute gallery of Burtynsky's amazing still images, which look great blown up on a HD set, as he explains the photographs and how they were taken. That extra alone is reason enough to own the blu-ray. It's like the world's best photography book, with the images at least a little closer in size to Burtynsky's massive prints.

This movie showcases the cinematographer/director's beautiful eye. That's it. His ego is on display in the cinematography along with all of his indulgences. The images are beautiful, buy very bad storytelling. The opening of this file is interesting in that it gets your attention, but then quickly lost mine as I thought I was watching a silent film. This is not a documentary. The most dialogue happens around the 45 minute mark. I still don't know what their main point was for this movie. What is it about water that they are trying to get across? Basically, what I got of this movie is that they left it up to us to make our own conclusion about water. I watch movies so I don't have to come to my own conclusion. If I want only my own opinion then I don't need to watch a movie for that. That's an hour and half that I will never get back.

Watermark's opening minutes is a long drawn out shot of gates opening releasing huge amounts of water. We then cut to what feels like 5 minutes, to nothing. A dried up river. What a memorable way to open a film.This is one of the best looking movies I have seen in a long time and it shows. But, that is the main problem I have with it. It is so beautifully shot, that it is overlooks its message. We are so busy looking at the most amazing scenery that we forget what the movie is really about which the people being interviewed for such a short time remind us.The movie's main message is what one of the people say: Nothing lasts forever. They talk about how we are all water, how every species drinks water, how water is used to help make things, but the thing is we do know about some of this already. But, the things we don't know are at the most amusing.I have nothing else to say about this movie and I am sorry. But all it is, is it's eye candy. Nothing more, nothing less. Overlooking its message. The reason I rated it 7 is because there were so many memorable shots in the movie that I loved. But for the rest, it tries to get its point across, but rarely does.71/100 B-

That tens of thousands of dollars were spent, film crew and equipment dragged across the entire planet, only to produce something as insubstantial as this piece of empty eye-candy is rather amazing. Especially when one considers that it pretends to address some of the most crucial environmental issues facing the world in the near future.Hopping and skipping from one place to the next, cutting off stories and interviews right in the middle while never getting to the bottom of any single issue it raises, "Watermark" informs very little. The viewer is left still thirsty for something truly informative. Worse, it's actually boring after a while.In the end, this is simply a watered-down slideshow. Which is a tragedy, really, considering how truly serious are all the issues involved.Now if you'll excuse me, I have to re-watch Baichwal and Burtynsky's 2006 film "Manufactured Landscapes," to decide if perhaps I was wrong to give it such a high rating.