This movie was heavily neglected at its screening because of the lack of subtitles. If you have not seen this film or no little about the regional accents and dialects of Britain then my statement may confuse you. This is a British film and is spoken in English, but an English only people from that area of Britain could understand.
I know very little about Britain other than its popular culture and the occasional Lyndsay Anderson movie, so the "Black Country" region I had no knowledge of prior to seeing this movie. The movie begins with some old documentary footage of the local canals and a voice over expressing how important the canals were to the region, but due to modern rail roads being built the canals were no longer needed. It then fades to a beautifully quiet shot of the canal in present time, moving along lyrically with the wind. Also, this is when the movie began to separate the audience in to two groups, those that were patient and those that were not.
It is a very slow documentary, that focuses more on the meditative state of the canals and passers by, rather than tangible information. Only one or two people the movie encounters could I understand fully what they were saying, so its only natural many of the other people watching began to loose patience. However saying that, many people I spoke with after said they were too busy absorbing the harmonious visuals and sounds to bother trying to work out what the interviewees were saying.
It is certainly a shame something as stupid as subtitles could prevent this small movie from being fully appreciated, but that is something the distributors of this movie should have taken into account.
Despite that if you allow yourself to become lost with the lyrical value of the piece it is a very exceptional little movie.
