Tapped (2009) Reviews

• A vital movie everyone should watch.

  whirling-darkness2010-08-16

  I finished watching this movie less than an hour ago and I'm deeply touched by the information presented in it. The documentary is well structured and presents an overwhelming amount of evidence which will change the way anyone thinks about bottled and municipal water. Both the "manufacture" of the water itself, and also where the bottles come from, where they go after use and how they influence our lives while they're with us. I see this movie has only had one review and a few votes since it came on this site. That is a crying shame because this movie needs to be seen by every single person alive. The willful absence of major companies such as Coke, Pepsi and Nestle is extremely telling in light of all the material presented. One can only hope that the small voice of this film will be heard over the huge booming commercial machine that these and other companies represent in the popular media. If you haven't seen this movie, simply watch it. It's that good and the information is something everyone should know.

• Biased? Yes. Wrong? No!

  caughtintherain152011-01-19

  Yes, you do get mostly one side of the argument. Is this a bad thing? No! Bottled water companies have had YEARS AND YEARS and MULTIPLE PLATFORMS to spew their arguments about why their product is great, so what's so wrong about one little movie trying to counter their claims? People have a tendency to attack individuals rather than corporations, and its just not fair. This movie brings up MANY different arguments and reasons why bottled water is bad. You will most definitely learn something from watching it, and most likely, you will learn a lot. They hit on everything--chemical pollution, plastic pollution and the mile-wide plastic pools in the oceans, water privatization/community water rights, and so on. This isn't just about the environment, and it isn't just about people--it's about both. Great documentary hits on many issues surrounding bottled water, and is well filmed. Watch it!

• Astonishing documentary - a rare must-see.

  laracall-12009-09-13

  I saw this screened at RIFF yesterday and was bowled over by the quality of this documentary. I will freely admit that I had less than little interest in the topic of bottled water when I sat down in the theatre; by the time this documentary had concluded I honestly felt I had learned a life-changing lesson. Yes, it really is that good. The cinematography is gorgeous. The sleek, concise presentation of fact upon fact kept me riveted - and as the point of a documentary is to inform, 'Tapped' achieved its purpose admirably. I would recommend this documentary to anyone who has more than a passing interest in their personal health and that of their loved ones; any feeling of social responsibility for the welfare of their fellow Americans; and anybody who has ever been outraged by the casual exploitation of natural resources by morally bankrupt corporate giants. I'm actually a die-hard capitalist (I've never hugged tree; doubt I ever will) but this documentary made me really angry. I also recommend 'Tapped' as a learning resource for any aspiring documentarians out there - this is how it should be done: a compelling, well-balanced argument, extraordinary supporting evidence, imaginative presentation and truly beautiful camera-work. I've never given a documentary 10/10 in my life, but this was the highlight of the Film Festival. Excellent!

• Again, Science and Law Vs. Misinformation and Materialism

  jzappa2011-11-11

  This enlightening, competently investigated and imperative documentary with a fantastic opening titles sequence seizes the various health and environmental concerns associated with the privatization of water. Bottled water corporations make masses of proceeds every year, but are they entitled to exhaust a small town's water supply without previous permission and without restoring it? Fryebyrg, Maine, endured a water famine while, in tandem, Coca-Cola continued to pump their already deficient supply. It's revealed that the bottled water industry is unregulated and causes health hazards. Tap water, however, is thoroughly regulated. Municipalities test water for toxins nonstop every day. Director Stephanie Soechtig jabs acutely at the predicament of water with specific and vital insights, eschewing disproportionate use of talking heads. For instance, I feel like I should've already known that the Pacific has a portion overflowing with plastic. Numerous corporations employ the chemical BPA to make their bottles, a neurotoxin that potentially causes various neurological disorders. There's no denying that any and every form of growth are all endangered when science and law mingle with misinformation and materialism. At least documentaries like Tapped appear every so often to nurture awareness, to notify the people and clear the daze of party lines. Whether or not Tapped will help to heal the public's indifference toward progress and environmental causes is a different affair. Tapped does to bottled water manufacturing what Food, Inc. and Super Size Me did to food monopolies. It's an exposé of champion reporting. Some will likely put the propaganda label on Tapped however, and one could split those hairs, insomuch as it's predisposed to a certain alliance. But the information is indisputable, unlike the propaganda of today that functions to make us believe what its makers don't believe themselves. Tapped joins the crusade to battle corporate Goliaths who have milked local water supplies to sell it in toxic bottles, sometimes during droughts that constrain towns to rigorously limit their own water use. We're first brought to Fryeburg, where one day, their standard of living is as it's been for generations, and the next day enormous trucks roll in. Without any prior communication, Nestle just silently procured land to tap for water, and since then they've been rolling those trucks in and out, extracting from the local spring but paying no taxes to recover the community. And unlike other trades, they're not even required to purchase resources to make their product, save for those plastic bottles, made by petroleum factories with cancer-causing constituents. All effective modern documentaries seem to need statistical facts presented in graphic design effects to give their allegations a source. And in an age of instant gratification, they must. Conservative Libertarians want to know what's wrong with someone making a buck? Well, just 1% of the water that envelops 75% of the planet is drinkable. A year before this documentary was finished, there was a drought in 35 of 50 States. No water, no life. The first words said in Tapped are, "By 2030, two-thirds of the world will not have access to clean drinking water." During a Raleigh drought, Pepsi kept hauling over 400,000 gallons a day. How are such reckless actions possible in a democracy? Well, the FDA, we gather from intense footage of Senate hearings, relies on tests run by the companies themselves! Meanwhile, one FDA pen-pusher is accountable for supervision of the entire industry. Put in close-up and faced with facts, we ultimately even hear the FDA publicist telling Soechtig that if he'd known this was the course the interview was to take, he wouldn't have agreed to grant the interview. Why does the FDA even need a publicist? A visit to Corpus Christi familiarizes us with residents who live within miles of the factory producing the plastic bottles used by the big three water manufacturers. All have health troubles. The more you watch, the more scared and livid you become. American industry has been reduced to a criminal kingdom over the last thirty years, but the bottled water industry has clearly avoided greater scrutiny. Hopefully, that's changing. It all boils down to water as a rudimentary birthright, a raw material owned by us all. If you begin commodifying bare essentials of life in such a way as to make it harder for people to get to them, you have the footing for grave political volatility.

• A really must see documentary

  gsuhyjunk2010-09-08

  Some time ago I had a constructive debate with my sister, who is just finishing her bio-genetic study with straight 10's if I may add, on the topic of tapped and bottled water. She was the first person to made me think over this and frighteningly also their tests of PET bottles as well as other EU countries showed the same result as we can see in the documentary. Its bad enough that we all know the excessive use of plastic which is an oil bye product is ruining our natural habitat and our living environment, but its also affecting our health since the corporations care for profits over our health and preserving nature. If you disagree hard with this documentary, than, I guess its time to open your eyes and stop thinking narrow minded as the earth is not here just so this extremely greedy generation could rape her all over again. Documentary mostly focuses on the USA tapped water, but since the industry is driven by world corporations its still a good example probably what's happening all over. And since the USA have (by my opinion) one of the most corruptible government / corporation relationship its a good example what could be there for us all in near future if people will not start thinking a bit "out of the box". And I would not agree with some of the comments that says the documentary is biased. If you watch it carefully, you will see there are quite some interviews or inserts that shows how unregulated this business really is. Most recommended for ALL viewers and ages. 10/10