I’m pretty late getting to this one, seeing as how TIFF wrapped up almost a week ago. After skipping The Obituary Of Tunde Johnson (tiffr) Saturday I took my solitary self to see There’s Something In The Water (imdb | tiffr), the new documentary from Ian Daniel and Ellen Page about how Nova Scotia — Page’s home province, and mine — isn’t doing enough to protect its water. It was inspired by the book There’s Something In The Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous & Black Communities by Dalhousie professor Ingrid Waldron. [link]

Stories about dump chemicals seeping into the water in the south end of Shelburne, where descendants of black loyalists live, were new to me, but I was more than familiar with the setting for the second story — Pictou Landing, where the local pulp mill pumps chemicals into Boat Harbour. I was there thirteen years ago, and smelled the chemicals from a few miles away when the wind shifted — I seriously can’t imagine what it’s like up close. You could see Page almost gagging in the documentary when she got near it.

The third site was another body of water I know well — the Shubenacadie  river, which runs through central NS and over/along which I’ve driven countless times. More importantly, it flows into the Minas Basin where I swam as a kid, and where my family members continue to swim today. A natural gas company wants to hollow out storage caverns for its natural gas, pumping the brine into the Shubenacadie. A group of local Mi’kmaq women is working to stop them, but needs help. You can learn more here, and donate to their legal fund here.

All in all, a straightforward and effective documentary, but first and foremost an important documentary.

.:.

Cover photo from the TIFF website

Lindsay had (or was supposed to have) an all-day meeting yesterday, so I thought I’d try to catch a TIFF screening from the first weekend. I grabbed a ticket for The Friend (imdb | rotten tomatoes | tiff) at the Princess Of Wales theatre, a film based on an essay published in Esquire four years ago about cancer’s brutal toll on author Matthew Teague’s wife, and his friend who stayed to help through it all.

I’m honestly not sure yet how I feel about the movie version. It pushed every emotional button — I cried, as did pretty much the entire theatre — but I felt like the movie very much wanted us to cry. It focused on the hard parts of the story, but not the hardest parts of the story — it glossed over much of the physical trauma, and added a life-is-beautiful veneer missing from the essay. So maybe Teague wanted that version? He did, after all, option the story and consult on the screenplay, so it wasn’t ripped from his hands. And the essay was written in the raw months after the author’s wife passed — maybe he wanted to capture more of her vs. more of the cancer? I don’t know.

The director addressed the difference in tone during the post-screening Q&A, saying she had to find a balance between telling the story and traumatizing the audience. Which, fine.

But as I said, I felt emotionally drained — pushed, more like — by the end. And that seemed to me like the film’s intent. So while I had a very strong reaction, I’m having trouble sorting out whether it feels like an authentic one the day after.