Let's Look at Water
1947 · 20m · Canada
Directed by Harold Randall
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative
A city filtration plant purifies drinking water while underground mains, trains, ships and aircraft systems show how supplies are delivered and safeguarded.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 1947 NFB industrial film about water infrastructure sounds like the opposite of subversive—but Randall's decision to make the mundane *contemplative* instead of propagandistic is genuinely weird, almost meditative in a way that makes you question why we've stopped looking at systems this way.
This is canonical NFB documentary craft: the measured observation of infrastructure as civic poetry, where editing rhythm and sound design elevate a filtration plant into formal argument about public trust and the invisible commons—the kind of film that belongs in any serious conversation about Canadian documentary lineage.
The genius move here is treating water distribution as a meditation rather than a public-safety lecture—Randall commits fully to contemplative pacing and hydraulic detail, and that tonal choice transforms what could've been dry instructional material into something that actually *feels* like watching water move through a city.