Una gota de agua

In spite of the stuffy narration, there is something fresh about this documentary that starts with children about to play, and then warns the audience against drinking water from contaminated rivers, a big problem Puerto Rico was confronting in the 1940s (as it is also ilustrated in Benjamin Doniger's short drama "El cacique"). While Doniger's film is more concerned with leadership in communities and does not follow the case of a sick child that opens the action, "A Drop of Water" show the kids collecting contaminated water, then goes first to a laboratory where a drop of water is fully scrutinized, and then to a hospital where a nurse alerts the viewers and three very sick-looking little boys are shown as proof of the dangers of dirty water. It then goes to the "didactic part", where we learn the solution of boiling water, and returns to the happy faces of kids at play. A good example of the early cinema produced in Puerto Rico.