Paddle to the Sea (1966)
Director: Bill Mason
Studio: National Film Board of Canada/Janus Films
Video: 1.33:1 color
Audio: DD mono
Length: 28 minutes
Rating: *****
One of the many great short films from the Canadian Film Board, Paddle to the Sea was based on the 1947 children’s picture book of the same name by Holling C. Holling. Mason filmed the odyssey of a tiny hand-carved wood canoe from its origins in the snowed-in farm country of Ontario down thru the Great Lakes, up the St. Lawrence and finally out into the Atlantic Ocean. The film captures the encounters of the little canoe and its native American paddler as it comes across birds, dogs, little children, giant steamships, and many varities of weather as it travels downsteam constantly towards the ocean. The boy who made it carved into its bottom “Paddle to the Sea. Please Put Me Back in the Water.” It’s a beautifully-filmed classic for all ages – educational, enlightening and sure to instill a sense of wonder in young viewers as well as old. [This DVD, The Red Balloon, and White Mane are from Janus Films – a sister company of the Criterion Collection – and will be sold as a three-film package by Janus.]
– John Sunier
