The Movie

The small Caribbean island of Cascara is still part of the British Commonwealth and has little to offer other than heat, wind and a population mainly descended from shipwreck survivors. Baxter Thwaites (Michael Caine) doesn’t have much to do as governor of the small island and tries to make life in diplomatic exile as pleasant as possible. But the peace is severely disturbed when an American oil company wants to shoot commercials on an old oil drilling platform. Suddenly the well starts bubbling again – not with oil, but with the finest mineral water. Cascara already sees itself as a rich island, but the Americans want to get their hands on the table water themselves. But then the British government decides to relocate the inhabitants to other islands for cost reasons. Baxter forgets his Britishness and takes unusual measures…

At the end of the 1970s, the British film industry was not exactly at the end of its rope, but it was at a disadvantage compared to its Hollywood competitors because many bigger film studios in the UK had collapsed. One of the few bright hopes was Handmade Films, a company originally founded by ex-Beatle George Harrison to finance the Monty Python film Life of Brian. Despite, or perhaps because of the controversy surrounding the biting religious satire, Life of Brian turned out to be a huge success and made Handmade Films a new star in the British film industry.

Handmade produced some of the best British films of the 1980s, many of which achieved enormous popularity and were soon considered classics. Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits was one of their biggest productions, as were The Long Good Friday, Mona Lisa, A Private Function and Withnail & I. While these films were highly praised by critics, other Handmade productions hardly stood a chance if they were not sophisticated enough – the comedies in particular suffered from this and were often judged unfairly.

These included two movies from the British writing team Dick Clement and Ian LaFrenais, who had been creating original comedies for English television and cinema together since the 1960s. In 1983 they directed the adventure film parody Bullshot, based on the Bulldog Drummond serials from the 1930s and a popular parody theater play. Although it was not particularly financially successful, the people at Handmade Films, especially George Harrison, liked it so much that they asked the two authors for more ideas. So the authors decided to resurrect a script that they had been working on with their American friend Bill Persky.

It was the idea for Water, a parody of British colonialism, that Dick Clement and Ian LaFrenais brought to Handmade Films and quickly got the green light for – at least in principle. Before production could really begin, a suitable collection of actors, a South Sea island, an oil rig and a lot more had to be found. Amazingly, the filmmakers got everything together without any serious problems, which was probably due to the popularity of Handmade Films, but also because a lot of people liked their idea.

One of the enthusiastic ones was Michael Caine, whose career was not exactly at its peak in the early 1980s. He was, nevertheless, not afraid to get involved in an uncertain project like Water whose script he really loved. Just as Terry Gilliam had inspired Sean Connery for Time Bandits a few years earlier, Dick Clement and Ian LaFrenais had done the same with Michael Caine. Up to then, the British actor was not exactly known for his humorous side, but that was about to change.

With Michael Caine in the lead role, the production was as good as ready to go, because with a star like him involved. there was also hope for commercial success. The supporting roles were not cast with particularly big stars, but a whole group of excellent actors were found who were ideal for the many over-the-top characters. Scottish comedian Billy Connolly took on the role of Delgado, the singing rebel. Actually an accomplished musician himself, Connolly had no problem at all with the planned musical interludes. At his side was the relatively unknown English television actor Chris Tummings. The DJ from Radio Cascara, a smaller but importantl role, was played by the American television comedian Jimmie Walker in the best reggae-rasta manner.

Baxter’s crazy wife Dolores is a role that thrives on ridiculousness and the Italian-American actress Brenda Vaccaro excelled at playing the faded South American beauty perfectly over the top. In contrast to her, the role of Pamela Weintraub, the environmental activist who joins forces with Baxter defending the Island in the second half of the story, is almost underplayed by Valerie Perrine. Her character unfortunately got a bit lost in the story, but she makes the best out of the joint scenes with Michael Caine.

The other supporting roles were all brilliantly cast too. While Michael Caine played the perfect sloppy Englishman, Leonard Rossiter portrays the snobby British diplomat Sir Malcolm with wonderful exaggeration. Sadly it was his last film role because he passed away shortly after the film’s production. The wonderful Fulton McKay played the not-so-pious island priest, while Dennis Dugan as the blond Spenco henchman is wonderfully slimy.

And then there was Dick Shawn, a brilliant English comedian whose wonderful performance in Mel Brooks’ The Producers brought him a lot of fame. He only has a small, but memorable appearance as he highly exaggerated film star Deke Halliday in Water and was just perfect in his short appearance. Last but not least, the oil magnate Spender is played by none other than Fred Gwynne, who became world famous in the 1960s as Herman Munster, but was also a very talented and versatile actor and plays the Texan in a very scary but also quite humorous way.

Dick Clements and Ian LaFrenais’ script took a very simple story and developed it into something surprisingly complex. The relatively short film is filled with several subplots that are constantly intertwined. Water actually has enough material for several films: the fight for independence of a South Sea island that is neglected by British colonial policy and ultimately abandoned, the story of two singing amateur rebels, the oil company that encounters water and wants to compete with Perrier, the daughter of the oil multinational who rebels against her father and finally the broken marriage of the governor, whose wife would like nothing more than to flee the island.

All of this sounds pretty crazy and would probably fail completely on its own, but the two authors knew how to juggle the individual story elements with pinpoint accuracy. The humor never loses its touch and often dives deep into satire and parody – only when you’re English yourself you have the license to slander the British as mercilessly as in this film.

“I don’t care, I don’t give a damn, British justice is a farce and a sham,” yodels the singing rebel Delgado in the governor’s face, and that’s not all – English colonial policy is ridiculed just as disrespectfully. Water even doesn’t shy away from a portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, but the jokes never descend into the ridiculous. The humor lies less in the physical slapstick than in the brilliant texts, which were tailored perfectly to the actors.

Dick Clement, who also took over directing duties, and Ian La Frenais also assembled a top notch production team to make the movie look as good as possible. They were able to hire Douglas Slocombe, who had just completed shooting Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with Steven Spielberg. The veteran British cinematographer who began his career in the 1950s in the Ealing Studios shooting their classic comedies and took the same approach to Water – filming in colour, but in a quiet, conventional way with tight compositions and almost too nice views of the island.

Music was one of the main components of Water from the very beginning. Instead of a classical orchestral accompaniment, the musical accompaniment was to consist of newly composed pop, rock and reggae songs, and even a large concert scene with a star cast was planned. What would have been impossible for other filmmakers was no problem at all for Dick Clement and Ian LaFrenais – when one of the film’s producers is called George Harrison, there is no need to beg for the pop stars.

The title song and three more were composed and recorded by reggae legend Eddy Grant, and George Harrison also contributed a few pieces, which were created together with composer Mike Moran and supplemented by lyrics from the two screenwriters. For the big UN concert finale, a dream band was put together that could only exist on film – Eric Clapton, who also wrote the song, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Jon Lord, Mike Moran, Ray Cooper and Chris Stainton as well as the background singers Jenny Bogle and Anastasia Rodriguez shared the stage with Billy Connolly and Chris Tummings in the mock UN headquarters.

The concept of Water sounds like a gimmick to spend a few weeks on holiday on a South Sea island and shoot a film at the same time – that may well have been what the filmmakers had in mind, but only part of the filming took place in the Caribbean. St. Lucia, the second southernmost island in the Lesser Antilles, was chosen for the fictional island of Cascara. Many of the exterior shots were shot in the coast town of Soufriere, where a lot of buildings are still recognizeable today.

St. Lucia did not prove to be barren enough for the remote side of Cascara, the island actually looked too nice. The scenes involving the oil rig – a real prop that was bought second-hand and shipped to the filming location – had to be shot in England on the cold Devon coast instead. A few interior shots were also filmed on well-equipped sets in the British Shepperton Studios.

Water is a successful mixture of over-the-top British humour, good music and a clever story that is simply great fun. Sadly, exactly that seems to have been the movie’s downfall, because many critics didn’t really get along with the British humor and, despite the star cast, Water didn’t receive much attention especially in the USA. In Germany, the film was released in cinemas in a version shortened by eight minutes, but later still became a long-running hit on video and television and an insider tip for fans of British humor. Over the years, the movie achieved an underground cult status together with many other Handmade Films productions, but was never easy to find until the mid-2000s.

The Disc

When the small German label Sunfilm released Water on DVD in 2005 together with a few other movies from Handmalde Films, it was the first release worldwide and a bit of a sensation. Sunfilm had worked hard on procuring a new 16:9 master and even commissioned an audio commentary by the filmmakers. When it emerged shortly before the release date that the English version was missing a short scene compared to the heavily edited German version, Sunfilm showed unusual initiative and quickly included the shorter 85-minute version, taken from an old video master, as a bonus on a second DVD.

What happened to Sunfilm in the next couple of years is unclear, but it seems that the label quietly ceased to exist and the German rights to a lot of Handmade films moved to other distributors. It took quite a while for this rare and curious movie to reappear – in 2023 the label Cinestrange announced an expensive Blu-Ray edition in three different Mediabook designs but later also a less expensive edition in a keepcase appeared.

The “plain” edition of Water is identical to the Mediabooks except the packaging and had all the extras from the previous DVD releases – except the second disc with the shorter German version that contains the one scene that is not in the international cut. This scene, that should have been located in the 24fps version at 41:19, now can truly be called “lost” because it was not even included as a bonus material.

Despite the terrible cover design of the non-mediabook release and the missing scene, this Blu-Ray of Water is a welcome upgrade of the DVD even though the transfer seems to be the same as almost two decades ago and could look a little sharper. But with a movie as rare as this, even an average Blu-Ray is a good Blu-Ray.

Image

The new German Water Blu-Ray seems to be based on the same high-definition transfer that Sunfilm was working so hard to get back in 2005 and while it does show its age a little bit it’s still a very good transfer of an 1980s movie.

The film source was cleaned so well that there are no dropouts apart from a few isolated small pieces of dust. Absolutely no scratches, reel change markers or other damage is visible. The film grain seems to have been left largely alone and is visible to a completely normal extent. It’s not at all distracting It gives the transfer a pleasant film-like texture and makes the image appear not too smooth and digital, but really lively.

Sharpness is quite good but shows some limitations due to the age of the transfer – but there’s still a good level of detail.. A sharpening filter doesn’t seem to have been used – if it was, then it did not leave any unpleasant side effects, because double edges or similar are nowhere to be seen. The colours are slightly muted and could pop a little more in some scenes, but overall look very natural and not like a movie from the 1980s at all.

The authoring is unobtrusive but since the movie was squeezed on a single-layer BD-25 the bitrate is not the highest, hovering around 20 mbit/s.

Under the complicated circumstances, Sunfilm had done everything to procure a decent transfer and it still looks good almost 20 years later – this is probably the best the movie will ever look.

Sound

While the 2005 DVD release contained the English soundtrack in its original 2.0 Dolby Surround mix and a newly created German track for the long version, the Blu-Ray adds 5.1 tracks for both languages that are a slight, but noticeable improvement.

The English 2.0 Surround mix seems to be identical to the one included on the DVD with the difference that it now runs at the correct 24fps, making the voices and especially the music finally sound exactly as intended. The music is the strong part of the soundtrack – while the early songs in the first part of the film almost seem like a mono mix, later the soundstage opens up and spreads out over the front channels and even the surround a little bit. Dialogue and foley are mostly constrained to the center channel, except for the music this is a very conventional mix but the voices sound clear and natural. Compared to the old tinny German soundtrack from the TV broadcasts, bass and treble are excellent and the music really kicks in well.

Where the second English 5.1 Surround track is coming from is unknown, but it’s a noticeable improvement of the original stereo-surround mix. It has the same strong sound but opens up the music mixed a little bit and makes more use of the surround channels. The dialogue is still anchored in the center, but the background sound now spreads out a little more. It seems like there was some subtle remixing and overall the 5.1 track is preferable to the original mix in every way without sounding like an artificial upmix.

The German 2.0 and 5.1 tracks are almost similar, almost none of the improvements of the English 5.1 track have made it into the German version. It’s still a good representation of the hybrid long version that was created by Sunfilm in 2005 out of the old German dub and the better sounding English version. Where possible, the music was replaced with the stereo version of the English soundtrack, but this was not possible everywhere because the music was sometimes edited differently in the German version. Only part of the soundtrack sounds as good as the English version, otherwise it still has the somewhat tinny sound of the German mono soundtrack.

All soundtracks are encoded in DTS HD-MA. Unfortunately there are no English subtitles, but German subtitles that were transcribed from the German version are included. A separate subtitle track is automatically activated when the German soundtrack is selected to translate the undubbed scenes.

Bonus Materials

The Water Blu-Ray carries over the extras from the DVD release, the unfortunately rather unexciting audio commentary, but also adds a few things. The nice menus from the DVD have been replaced with a disappointing amateurish new design.

The Audio Commentary with Dick Clement and Ian LaFrenais is a welcome surprise, but unfortunately not quite the sensation it could have been. Although the two filmmakers are initially very enthusiastic narrators, they run out of memories quickly and there are very, very long pauses. When Clement and LaFrenais come up with something really interesting and do not just announce the actors who will be appearing, they come across as very personable and entertaining, but unfortunately the phrase “I can’t remember” is heard far too often. The filmmakers leave the impression that they could have told a lot more with a little preparation.

The Handmade Story (24:37) is a short German-language documentary about the film studio originally created by Sunfilm for their releases in the mid-2000s. It was not included on the original Water DVD, but is available here in its original standard definition encoding.

The Handmade Trailer Show has blurry VHS-quality trailers of Mona Lisa, Five Corners, Nuns on the Run, Time Bandits, The Missionary and Shanghai Surprise – all in English language.

The Image Gallery (1:52) is a short video showing a collection of film posters and productions stills that was newly made for the Blu-Ray.

The Trailer (3:02) has a better image quality compared to the old DVD release but now only has a German soundtrack instead of the original English.