Gareth Evans - 28 August 2002 - United Kingdom - Drowned Out -
Angry, compassionate, disturbing and yet empowering
Publication: Time Out
When even the World Bank pull out of a project, you know there must be serious problems. That's a major understatement where the Indian government's Narmada river mega-dam and canal irrigation scheme is concerned. Fundamentally flawed and undemocratic, it comes with a terrible price tag: appalling resettlement packages, catastrophic displacements to urban slums, the loss of land, self-sufficiency, history and a symbiotic, spiritual relationship to both land and river.
Witness, therefore, some of the poorest peasant farmers in the country, standing chest deep in rising waters in their soon-to-be-flooded villages, as they declare "we will drown but we will not move".
Armstrong's compelling and committed film calmly builds an unanswerable case against the dams as it follows one village in the fight for survival.
An inspiring record of a quite extraordinary campaign of mass resistance, at once angry, compassionate, disturbing and yet empowering, it makes for urgent and necessary viewing.
www.timeout.com/london/
