Dangerous Decades (1818-1846)
1968 · 58m · Canada
Directed by Ronald Dick, Pierre L'Amare
Genres: documentary, historical
Tones: contemplative
From 1818 to 1846, Canada and the United States contest the continental interior, disputed boundaries in Oregon and Maine, and the shape of a possible transcontinental nation.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 58-minute essay on border disputes and nation-building sounds like the kind of thing that puts people to sleep, but Dick and L'Amare seem to be doing something deliberately austere with the form—treating geopolitics like a meditation rather than a spectacle, which is either brilliantly boring or boringly brilliant, and I suspect it's the former.
This is precisely the kind of archival documentary that understands its place in a tradition of essayistic historical filmmaking—measured pacing, contemplative distance, the kind of formal restraint that lets competing claims to land space breathe as intellectual argument rather than narrative drama.
The real work here is likely in how they've chosen to *not* dramatize the archive—whatever editing rhythm or sound design decision holds these 28 years of contested territory together without falling into period-piece sentiment is probably what makes this singular.