Flow: For Love of Water (2007)

79% of critics liked it
(48 reviews)
81% of users liked it
(1,415 ratings)

Irena Salina directs this feature-length documentary about the industry and consumption of humankind's most precious resource: water. As African villages survive on potentially toxic water supplies out of sheer necessity, Salina explores how the corporate structure has come to control humanity's… More Irena Salina directs this feature-length documentary about the industry and consumption of humankind's most precious resource: water. As African villages survive on potentially toxic water supplies out of sheer necessity, Salina explores how the corporate structure has come to control humanity's water supply, creating a dire situation that experts have come to refer to as the World Water Crisis. With issues of pollution, politics, and human rights all coming to a head with the issue, Salina points the finger at the specific corporate and governmental figures responsible for the crisis, and takes a look at how grassroots organizations work to fight the increasing privatization of water, hoping to end the imbalance in access to the precious resource that has already had mortal consequences for so many. ~ Cammila Albertson, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 24 min.
Directed By: Irena Salina
Genres: Documentary, Special Interest

In Theaters: Jan 20, 2008 Wide
On DVD: Dec 9, 2008
Studio: New Day Films

Critic Reviews

John Anderson, Variety
All of Salina's interviews and data tell a graphic story about corporate water piracy, the complicity of governments, the burden put on the poor and the scam of bottled water. But she can't quite jam it all in and still have a film that, well, flows.
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
As if we didn't have enough to worry about.
Patricia Hluchy, Toronto Star
Salina's film might have been stronger had it not tried to cover so many water-related issues. But there's no denying its power.
Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail
Flow makes the case against the privatization of water, which is happening in gazillions of impoverished communities around the world, not to mention North American backyards.
Ty Burr, Boston Globe
When filmmaker Irena Salina does marshal the facts, Flow is an eye-opening, troubling 90 minutes that makes us think twice about an element we take for granted.
G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
Salina's film is a very effective primer of an underreported problem. If nothing else, it made me thirsty.
Jennifer Merin, About.com
The documentary shows in no uncertain terms that if we continue to abuse our water supply, Earth will become uninhabitable and humankind will become extinct.
Robert Roten, Laramie Movie Scope
The film makes a convincing case for better oversight of public water systems, water conservation, better water treatment systems and better control of industrial pollution which contaminates water supplies.
Robert W. Butler, Kansas City Star
Before ending on a somewhat hopeful note of defiant activism, Irena Salina's globe-hopping documentary is a terrifying downer.
Frank Ochieng, Movie Eye
Although meandering at times, Flow is still a serviceable documentary spouting daunting informational facts and figures about the freshwater supply threats and the perilous consequences that inevitably follow.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Educational polemical documentary.
MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher
You may never buy bottled water again after this.
Lawrence Toppman, Charlotte Observer
Not all documentaries are solution-oriented, but this is.
Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City
The film is filled mostly with talking-head interviews and very one-sided reporting. So it's lucky that these are subjects that are extremely topical right now, and are of interest as a result.
Ted Fry, Seattle Times
Problems are addressed in a narrative progression that gets more horrendous and builds into utter despair, except for the final few words of activism and optimism.
John Beifuss, Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
The overarching theme here is that the Earth's freshwater supply is being contaminated, sucked dry and 'privatized' for the benefit of huge corporations that are establishing themselves as the heirs to the oil cartels.
Bill White, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Flow might be alarmist propaganda, but with an estimated 20 years left before California's water supply is used up, it might be time to respond to the alarm.
Nora Lee Mandel, Film-Forward.com
Channeling Soylent Green, Flow is fresh when it ties issues of supply, cost, quality, and extraction on 5 continents with the rise of giant water companies.
Jonathan Kiefer, Sacramento News & Review
Your tap water might be making you sick. But your bottled water might be making you sicker, while also enabling the environmental rape of the American heartland and unconscionable extortion in the Third World.
Josh Bell, Las Vegas Weekly
The doomsday tone of the movie quickly becomes wearying, and after a certain point the information is simply repetitive, and thus loses much of its impact.