The Water Diary

Involving enough short film made as part of a UN Millennium Development Goals project about water and global warming.

In the Australian outback there is a protracted drought. Two young girls find themselves sharing bath water. The horses ("The only two things that I loved" Englert declares) have to go.

The area's alpha female plans playing violin at dusk when the brother says the skies are most likely to respond with rain from the clouds he studies. The kids have to bring and drink jars of water which contain at least one tear drop - no problem.

Not hard to see Campion in this female world, mixing mysticism with an Australian setting.

Interesting idea by Campion here, I usually enjoy these takes of how children and families are impacted and react to worldwide catastrophes and phenomena. In this case, she tackles a drought, and more specifically climate change, through the lens of a child and her family in a rural community. It looks great, and she does what she does best: make us feel like we're right there with the characters, with great establishing shots, close-ups, and melancholic music.

This had flaws though. Most glaringly, it just didn't hook me, and I found that I wasn't that interested in what was going on, even when it's such a personal story (a big exception to this was the emotion felt when something is revealed to the main character). I could have done without so much narration, it would have been better to show it rather than straight up tell it. Finally, it just ends so abruptly and not very satisfyingly. The execution overall just didn't do it for me.

With insistence and the power of belief.

When I saw the scene children walk together to pour their water and the girl play the violin on the hill, I almost burst into crying for their purity, a pure and innocent heart to rain.

At first, I felt embarrassed and ridiculous for their movement, however, when encountering the sense, I was absolutely blown away!