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Aquarela

Play trailer 1:46 Poster for Aquarela PG 2019 1h 29m Documentary Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
87% Tomatometer 62 Reviews 32% Popcornmeter Fewer than 50 Verified Ratings
From massive waves to melting ice, filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky travels around the world to capture stunning images of the beauty and raw power of water.
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Aquarela

Aquarela

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Critics Consensus

Patiently constructed and beautifully filmed, Aquarela views man's relationship with water through a sobering -- and awe-inducing -- lens.

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Critics Reviews

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Ben Sachs Chicago Reader 03/25/2020
A breathtaking and offensive documentary in the vein of Werner Herzog's Lessons of Darkness. Go to Full Review
Kevin Maher The Times (UK) 12/13/2019
2/5
In the face of an actual, urgent and existing climate crisis, however, it feels slightly slack. Go to Full Review
Ben Nicholson Sight & Sound 12/11/2019
In this vision, water feels like a very old god: a pagan one that is volatile, wrathful, impassive to the perils of man and yet majestic and serene. Go to Full Review
Alex Bentley CultureMap 02/18/2021
Aquarela is one of the rare documentaries that may cause a sharp divide because of how the visuals and sounds attack the viewer at every turn. Go to Full Review
Susan Granger SSG Syndicate 04/22/2020
6/10
Immersive, cinematically overpowering - delivering an (unstated) environmental message that - with global warming - we're all living on thin ice. Go to Full Review
Alexa Dalby Dog and Wolf 12/13/2019
4/5
[Aquarela's] like a very deep, and much more artful, National Geographic project. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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sup.steve8 L 09/29/2019 I wanted to like this movie but it is unwatchable and incoherent. 6 people in the theater and no one made it to the end. Watch anything else or stick toothpicks in your eyes anything but this See more Howard W 08/26/2019 Though at times a bit slow, Aquarela is more a work of art than an ordinary film. There are moments on the screen and the soundtrack that are simply overwhelming and simultaneously beautiful. Often, I sat there in awe of how several of the sequences were filmed. If you go, go without expectations and just let the experience literally wash over you. See more RSM 08/20/2019 EVERYTHING! Very repetitious and after a while boring- Half the theater left! See more Jesse A 08/18/2019 I don’t understand how all these critics could like this garbage. It was repetitive, boring, and felt like it would never end. It seems like the director had no editor and just had tons of b-roll he threw in. The initial scenes of the car rescues started out interesting, but went nowhere fast. It was amateurish, ugly, sonically abrasive, lacking in vision, and had no point. 1/2 star is generous. See more Kyle M 03/03/2024 Meditative under observative patience over occasional stunning imagery that's probably best to experience theatrically, albeit intangibly directed with no insights given besides being inferiorly wondrous. (B) See more 10/15/2021 There's no real plot or framework to speak of, but the camera work is pretty spectacular. I think many of the scenes could have been cut quite a lot shorter, but there's some pretty interesting stuff here. For example, who knew there were glaciers on Lake Baikal? Not me. -- One thing that could perhaps have made this film better would have been more -- or any -- narration. Not over-the-top non-stop Werner Herzog style narration, but at least a little chatter here and there to let us in on what we're seeing. See more Read all reviews
Aquarela

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Movie Info

Synopsis From massive waves to melting ice, filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky travels around the world to capture stunning images of the beauty and raw power of water.
Director
Victor Kossakovsky
Producer
Heino Deckert, Sigrid Jonsson Dyekjær, Aimara Reques
Screenwriter
Aimara Reques
Distributor
Sony Pictures Classics
Production Co
Danish Documentary Production Aps, Ma.Ja.De Filmproduktion, Louverture Films, BFI Film Fund
Rating
PG (Some Thematic Elements)
Genre
Documentary
Original Language
Russian
Release Date (Theaters)
Aug 16, 2019, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Nov 12, 2019
Box Office (Gross USA)
$306.6K
Runtime
1h 29m
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