Canada Between Two World Wars
1963 · 21m · Canada
Genres: documentary, historical
Tones: contemplative
Canadians weather prosperity, Depression and social upheaval during the two decades between the world wars.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A National Film Board archival essay on Depression-era Canada sounds like the opposite of subversive—except it's from 1963, which means it's watching history through a mid-century lens that's quietly weird about what "Canada" even means, and that temporal double-take is exactly the kind of thing everyone sleeps on.
The NFB's documentary tradition sits at the intersection of formal rigor and national purpose, and this 21-minute meditation on interwar social upheaval exemplifies that curatorial discipline—using contemplative pacing and archival material to situate a decade within a larger historical argument about Canadian identity.
What elevates a straightforward historical survey into something memorable is likely the editing rhythm that stitches together newsreel, still photography, and testimony—the specific choice of how to pace those transitions determines whether this is textbook or revelatory.