Synopsis for the Film

Life along the waters might not be always as exotic or even as strange as we, the chronic landlubbers, might assume. It is an everyday life with everyday chores, everyday routines- early morning newspaper and tea, followed by work and back home in the evening to watch the latest episode on the TV. Of course, one has to be early and take into account the trouble of starting the boat engines or if you prefer the roadways, a wrong maneuver along a steep curve will mean a swim back to dry land. Director Bert Haanstra chronicles his native, The Netherlands, with an acute eye for everyman-everyday quirks and discovers a connection between the ubiquitous water and the rhythm of life on the land that lies ever so precariously in between. His unique lyrical sensibility and exuberant humane whimsy, even as it examines a local phenomenon, gives the proceedings a universality that transcends languages and boundaries and therein lies the film’s quirky humor, tender poignancies, surprising depth and timelessness. "Another film about water... Can't we ever get away from that water?" famously laments the narrator but when so much of life and its quintessence comes for it, how else can the perceptive film-maker portray the everyman’s every-day?