Power from Shipshaw
1946 · 9m · Canada
Directed by George Lilley
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative
Hydroelectric dams at Shipshaw, Quebec supply the Saguenay valley industries, especially the Arvida aluminum works, and the film shows the metal's many practical applications.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 1946 industrial documentary that plays it completely straight—no irony, no subversion, just hydroelectric infrastructure porn and aluminum salesmanship. Honestly, the *earnestness* is almost interesting, but only if you're watching it as historical artifact, not art.
This is canonical NFB documentary craft: the contemplative pacing, the marriage of image and industrial purpose, the way Lilley situates technological progress within a specific landscape tradition that runs through the Canadian documentary canon. It's formally secure in ways that reward close attention.
The decision to let the Shipshaw facility *speak* through sustained observation rather than voiceover intervention—to trust the aluminum works' own rhythm and scale to generate meaning—is what separates this from pure industrial PR into something that actually holds attention across nine minutes.