Canada the Land
1971 · 7m · Canada
Directed by Rex Tasker, Jean-Claude Labrecque
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative
An aerial journey crosses Canada coast to coast, contrasting untouched wilderness with growing cities and industry.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A straight-ahead landscape essay from the NFB's golden age—competent, politically aware, but arriving exactly when you expect it to; the aerial contrast between wilderness and industry is the thesis, not a surprise.
Tasker and Labrecque situate this squarely in the documentary-essay tradition of 70s Canadian cinema, where formal restraint and editorial precision carry the ideological weight; the pacing and aerial composition decisions reveal a film confident in its own lineage.
The choice to let the geography and industrial intrusion speak through pure image—no narration, just the edit rhythm and the cut between pristine and developed land—is what makes seven minutes feel like a considered argument rather than a travelogue.