DamNation (2014) User Reviews

A Very Interesting Film on the Problems caused by Damns

[JustCuriosity · 8/10 · 13 March 2014]

Damnation was very well-received in its world premiere at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. The film is a thoughtful, well-supported argument to significantly reduce the thousands of damns in the U.S. This issue has been almost invisible as part of the wider environmental debate and certainly deserves more discussion. I was surprised that this movement has begun to have some success despite being quite low-profile in much of the media. Some parts of the film seemed a little overly idealistic in terms of the argument that preservation of salmon runs and fish species could justify the elimination valuable hydroelectric resources. The overall argument about preserving natural beauty also seemed a little unrealistic in terms of adaptation to modernity. Still the filmmakers made a solid case that some damns had outlived their usefulness. The historical part of the film was very interesting since it is an economic transformation that is rarely discussed. The interviews and the photography were really well-done and they managed to throw in some interesting characters and some humor.

The film had far more depth than the other film about river preservation, Yakona, which also ran at SXSW. While similar politically, the two films were dramatically different in terms of style. Yakona was a wordless meditation without any real substance. . Damnation was well-filmed very informative and detailed and, in the end, makes a rational case rather than emotional one for its point-of-view. I hope the film gets some distribution, because it is an issue that deserves more serious political discussion.

Excellent Documentary

[s0613029 · 8/10 · 12 January 2015]

Excellent documentary. From the beginning of this film, the history and juxtaposition of MAN vs. Nature is present. The cinematography and the use if imagery by the videographer is impeccable and bold. The narration is wonderful and the interviews are actually very well done and humorous. The non-censored and comical yet serious nature of the narration really gives the film the added push, thanks to Ben Knight, director.

The film generates awareness and also captures these brilliant yet detrimental accomplishments of man; and goes to show the areas affected by this phenomenon. The takeaway message is: "take away the dams that are not useful". Find me someone that disagree's with this statement and i'll show you an individual that has not seen this film.

DamNation is a great environmental documentary which explores the complex environmental issues and history of American dams .

[thomasoneal · 8/10 · 9 December 2015]

Promoted and supported by Patagonia, DamNation takes an in depth look at an environmental issue which few Americans are aware of. This environmental documentary explores the importance of dams with reference to their history in America, influence on culture, impact on the environment, importance to agriculture, and energy efficiency. The main environmental issue concerning dams which is discussed throughout the film is the impact of dams on salmon spawning, America's response to salmon spawning with fish hatcheries, and the conservational inefficiency of (and harm caused by) fish hatcheries. The film also looks at the history of government funded dam construction and cultural backlash and call for dam removal. Not only have dams destroyed salmon spawning routs, but also flooded areas of incredible beauty and of immense cultural and historical importance to Native Americans. DamNation bring to light the hypocrisy and corruption behind the construction and maintenance of many major dams on rivers such as the Snake and Colorado. Released in 2014, this powerful and visually stunning documentary calls for major revisions and reevaluations of the value of all dams in the US. DamNation does a great job presenting the several different, complex issues surrounding dams in America, however it is biased. The film takes the effort to interview dam workers and hydro power supporters; however, the film mostly focuses on the negative effects of dams and why removal necessary. DamNation is considered both a documentary and adventure film. Documentaries often struggle to maintain the interest of the audience but DamNation is not just able to entertain the audience with action and visually beautiful shots, but also inspire them stand on environmental issues and to enjoy the outdoors. I would recommend this film to all young adults and anyone interested in environmental issues.

Awesome

[karenr · 10/10 · 21 May 2014]

DamNation really surprised me - very fascinating, very compelling, and I didn't go in already converted. An excellent film - hats off to Travis Rummel and Ben Knight and also to Yvon Chouinard. The film is a real eye-opener. It avoids didactic, but makes you feel the power and importance of rivers to America. Who knew we have 70,000 dams in the US, most doing nothing useful at this point? I want everyone to see this film - it is really good, really exciting and really important. It is hard to make fish truly sympathetic, they are cold, scaly and expressionless. But this film has me convinced that anything able to swim 900 miles deserve our support, and the removal of a few dams doing nothing useful at this point.

Well crafted and visually beautiful documentary

[dhash77 · 10/10 · 21 May 2014]

I was really surprised that I enjoyed this documentary so much. The information about our nation's abundance of damns, and the negative environmental impact they have had on the landscape and the indigenous wildlife was shocking to hear and see. Perhaps in the world of environmentalists this is common knowledge, but for a person not entrenched in the cause, like me, it was a compelling argument to learn more about the subject and to get more involved. The cinematography is a highlight of the film, and the information is delivered in a manner that kept me interested the whole time. This is definitely a film worth checking out.

Provides a strong message with passion without being pushy

[tonyloans-tx · 10/10 · 25 November 2014]

I'm a bit of a hybrid Republican. I grew up in California and was a child in the late 1960's and early 70's which gave me a strong appreciation for nature. Later, the business influence of my family and where I ended up career-wise had me understand how business operates. However, it never impacted my love of nature and its wonders. This documentary exposed a lot of critical information we don't normally receive from the mainstream (no pun intended) media. I had no idea we have so many dams in the USA! To see that some were made close to each other along the same waterway was shocking! As I saw the map of their placement all that ran through my mind was, "What where the planners thinking?!" I see this as a business opportunity for more windmills to be placed in desert areas where little life exists and minimal environmental impact is realized. Then, every single dam that does not include flood control and fish passages (https://www.nwcouncil.org/history/FishPassage) in its operations can be on the chopping block for closure and tear down. As a nation, we went way too far. I challenge the documentary team to post a list of dams they find acceptable that maintain human life still function well with nature. From my perception, not all dams are bad but after watching this, I know now that many should have never been built. For those who care about this subject, there are several times when you will get emotional. When you will understand the beauty and ecology of an area that ended up devastated after a dams was built, it can hit you in the gut. You will see native cultures that were damaged by the negative impact on the land which they so passionately love and shared with nature. The emotional loss is like losing a loved one. I'm grateful this documentary was made and showed a passion for sharing information without being pushy about it. If you end up 50% as passionate as the documentary team, you will be able to make a difference.

Insightful and Aesthetically Appealing Film

[wilderkristenn · 7/10 · 16 July 2020]

DamNation is a 2014 documentary that chronicles the history of dam building in the United States and shows how dam removal can be a strategy for restoring rivers. The film begins with scenic forest views with voiceover of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech at the dedication of Hoover Dam proclaiming the dam as a triumph in engineering. The speech seems to alienate the beauty and peacefulness of the flowing river. As the speech concludes, the opening shot holds a steady shot of a dam being removed. As the story unfolds, several dams in the Pacific Northwest are introduced, the history and purpose of each, and the current state of each dam. The film does a good job on introducing the idea of dam removal to someone who knows little about dams in an accessible and relatable format. DamNation spends much of the film explaining the social and environmental consequences caused by the damming of rivers from fish populations to the people who live near the bodies of water. The filmmakers present meaningful facts coupled with personal experiences for those who were negatively impacted by dams. For example, the amount of salmon and steelhead able to make the journey to spawn has diminished incredibly due to dams blocking the path. Even with fish ladders and elevators, salmon have a strenuous journey already, but dams make it nearly impossible. Additionally, the Elwha River Dam was built on Native American land in 1913 taking away a source of food for the nearby tribes and violating a treaty agreement. Another compelling argument is how much beauty has been lost at every dammed river. The only argument on the pro-dam side that worried me were how many jobs the hydroelectric supplied for small communities. Hydroelectricity was the main purpose for many dams, but many have outrun their usefulness and do not produce enough electricity staying open. Overall, the film gives insight into a topic few have much knowledge about. After watching I felt more educated on dams and their history in the United States. Going forward, I hope there is more education on the impacts of dams. In Georgia, all the lakes are manmade from damming up rivers for hydroelectricity plants, but some are no longer in use. Once researching if there were any deadbeat dams in Georgia and signed a petition to remove the Tugalo Dam. DamNation is a cool film that is worth the watch for anyone interested in water, fish, and activist art.

horrible

[spanatko · 3/10 · 12 July 2014]

the movie is great in how it's made, and in how it looks, I give you guys credit for that. But there is so much that Ben "your narrator" simply does not know, or does not speak about to his audience. Let me give you an example - showing wind-turbines and promoting these as an alternative to hydro-power might seem like a great idea - but in fact it is not, and it ruins the movie for any educated viewer. Here's why. Energy production is not that simple, you can not simply take one energy source out from the grid, and simply replace it with another one, as these operate in layers and each layer relies on the preceding layer of technology - both historically & because of the physics involved. Energy produced by kinetic energy from flowing water is the basis for all other energy producing technology - it is a crucial technology for all other technologies involved in energy production within the grid. First of all hydro-power provides the fastest energy source in the grid - we are talking about minutes required to start/stop a turbine, produce and deliver hydro-power generated energy anywhere within the grid when required and necessary. And you cannot do this using any other energy source. If there is an outage somewhere in the grid - hydro-power turbines are started and energy is delivered. And this happens a lot, everywhere due to various reasons. Take nuclear, coal, gas, syngas anything - the cycles required for start, generation, and delivery are weeks, in some cases even months. Because hydro-power is the fastest in the grid, it balances all disparities in the grid, and the whole system /other technology/ totally relies on it all the time. Hydro-power is fast and reliable, because you can anticipate, calculate and manage the energy production by altering the water flow. You can not do that with wind, nor solar energy - as you cannot simply control winds, or sunshine. That is the reason why hydro-power is used worldwide as a basis for all green energy - it's because it provides the balance between manageable energy sources, and the one's that are totally adhoc such as wind or solar. Long story short - thanks to hydro-power generation units in the grid, the grid has become flexible enough to being able to welcome unreliable energy producing technology. There would not be any wind or solar energy without hydro-power, as the only technology fast and reliable enough to step in when imbalances occur within the grid - is hydro-power. If hydro-power is taken out of the grid, the other energy sources lose the flexibility to employ wind & solar systems. Factories and businesses around the world are buying & paying for stable & reliable energy - not for unreliable power when the sun is shining or when the wind is blowing. Hydro-power compensates for all grid imbalances worldwide, and this is why I think that Ben needs to do a bit more research. I totally agree with the concept of proposing hydro-electric dams and power-plants with regard to the environment, passageways for fish etc. and this is happening, and I am grateful for that & totally welcome it. But revolting against the big energy producing machine targeting the least harmful technology in use today is preposterous. The next big problem I have with this film is that, however unsettling it might be to see how dams invade the ecosystem, it is still less damaging than nuclear, coal, gas, even solar or any other energy producing technology widely used today. For the interested viewer I strongly advise on studying the physics behind energy production, learning about all the technologies in use today. There is a reason why all areas regarded as ecologic hot-spots of this earth employ and rely solely and fully on hydro-power. I'm sorry for Ben but he is literally trying to bite his only allies in the world of energy production. It almost seems to me as if he is on a payroll of big coal & big nuclear. Question everything right?

They're ALL dam bad!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 5 January 2015]

This is a film that will delight folks who think that technology is ruining the world. Its basic premise seems to be that ALL dams are bad. And much of the time this documentary talks about how awful dams are. The film talks about how they kill people when they burst but most importantly they impede salmon from breeding. While there have been a few dam breaks (mostly a long time ago and talking about the Johnstown Flood of 1889 seemed WEIRD and disingenuous since it IS the 21st century) and it's undoubtedly true native salmon populations have been decimated, the film rarely explores the POSITIVES about dams or discusses whether SOME mitigating projects actually work (such as salmon hatcheries in Alaska). While a few folks are shown with contrasting views, mostly they seem like idiots and are overruled by the all-knowing narrator in the movie. The film also doesn't interview the right people--people with informed and scientific facts instead of emotions. I would have loved to have heard from biologists, geologists and the like--but mostly you have Native Americans, park rangers and activists--all people you might want to include ALONG WITH EXPERTS-- not in place of them.

The bottom line is that "DamNation" is clearly a film with a preconceived notion and it does all it can to support it and ignore things to the contrary (such as cheap and clean energy, jobs, increased farm production, etc.). It's a shame in a way, as technically this is a nice looking documentary. The graphics are great and the look of the film is lovely--hence why I give the film a 3 overall. For content, I would only give it a 1.

All of this is very sad, as I am a guy who probably would be towards the middle of this debate. I am an avid fisherman and feel we need to think and re-think many of the dam projects and other projects that negatively impact the environment. But, I think everything should be case by case. Dams are neither always bad or always good- -and anyone wanting to really learn more about this debate would be better advised to read some books instead.

Too simple, too naive

[yoyodeep · 1/10 · 28 December 2014]

I have heard that dams are not good for environment, and I was expecting to know why human would be better without dams. However the film was way too shallow, tunnel-visioned and very subjective. Science is not a belief. We want to see evidences and know analysis, not just emotional feelings or someone's own reminiscence. There are so much more to talk about of benefits of removing dams on environment, economics and, especially, on human development.The film, focusing narrowly on something that will only affect a very small population and very few aspects of people's life, failed to delivery any powerful or persuasive reasons to audience as to why dams should be removed.

Lame

[bearblackhawk22 · 1/10 · 13 December 2015]

Preserving the environment is one thing. Admirable. But as usual the national geographic channel glamorizes and ostensibly promotes vandalism of property and environmental extremism. Putting forth the notion that regression or devolution is a better place to be when It's not. In fact their own blindness to the resilience of the earth is amazing. Acknowledging the truth that in the pantheon of all time, Mans impact on the earth is no more than that of the dinosaurs. In a million years from now the earth will have moved on as it did with those same dinosaurs.

Enough propaganda already.

The blood veins of the Earth

[MovieIQTest · 21 February 2019]

Should not be blocked by so many dams. The rivers are exactly like the veins in human body, once clogged, the heart suffered and the body died consequently. When I first read the review of spanatko12 July 2014 before I watched this documentary, I somewhat agreed what he said 90%. But after I've watched it, his review and his opinions on the necessity of the dams just to generate stable supply of electricity has suddenly became a "Yes" and "No" conclusion, and the "No" seemed to get the upper hand of my feeling. But to emphasize the importance of the salmon fishery and the salmon back-home journey culture, or salmons long ago were one of the main food sources for the Indians, building the dams impaired their incomes or salmon catching tradition, neither was what I considered the dams were not right; the only thing that I think important was the rivers, as long as they flow, should not be blocked whatsoever. All the rhetoric reasons or excuses simply won't stand. You block the flow of the river, you ruin the natural balance of the environment. "If I could choose between birds and airplanes, I'll choose birds", that's a very intelligent remark by Charles Lindbergh. Some elements of the nature should be improved by humans but building dams definitely is not one of such endeavors.

"Dams, irrigation and now climate change have drastically run the once-mighty Colorado River dry. "rom its source high in the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado River channels water south nearly 1,500 miles, over falls, through deserts and canyons, to the lush wetlands of a vast delta in Mexico and into the Gulf of California.

That is, it did so for six million years.

Then, beginning in the 1920s, Western states began divvying up the Colorado's water, building dams and diverting the flow hundreds of miles, to Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and other fast-growing cities. The river now serves 30 million people in seven U.S. states and Mexico, with 70 percent or more of its water siphoned off to irrigate 3.5 million acres of cropland.

The damming and diverting of the Colorado, the nation's seventh-longest river, may be seen by some as a triumph of engineering and by others as a crime against nature, but there are ominous new twists. The river has been running especially low for the past decade, as drought has gripped the Southwest. It still tumbles through the Grand Canyon, much to the delight of rafters and other visitors. And boaters still roar across Nevada and Arizona's Lake Mead, 110 miles long and formed by the Hoover Dam. But at the lake's edge they can see lines in the rock walls, distinct as bathtub rings, showing the water level far lower than it once was-some 130 feet lower, as it happens, since 2000. Water resource officials say some of the reservoirs fed by the river will never be full again.

Climate change will likely decrease the river's flow by 5 to 20 percent in the next 40 years, says geo-scientist Brad Udall, director of the University of Colorado Western Water Assessment. Less precipitation in the Rocky Mountains will yield less water to begin with. Droughts will last longer. Higher overall air temperatures will mean more water lost to evaporation."

Dams only give you a dead pool of water, it clogged the natural flow of the rivers. It's just like the veins in the human body, when the blood circulation is blocked section after section, the human body will be dead. The Earth is like human body, the rivers are the veins of the Earth, once they are blocked, the Earth soon will be dead. And we are seeing it happens now.