Echoes of Forgotten Places

This artistic Canadian documentary seeks out forgotten remnants of a not-so-distant urban past in the pre-high-tech, pre-services industry world when cities were the heart of industrial production fueled by the sweat and strength of blue collar labor. Odd hints of this older world remain: abandoned factories that mysteriously evaded the wrecking ball, decommissioned power stations, and even aging storm drains that absorbed the toxic overflow and carried it down to the sewers. Mixing stunning still photography with equally impressive videography (all backed by a moody score from Robin Guthrie and Leesa Beales), the overall experience is akin to taking a kaleidoscopic journey into sites frozen in time while the surrounding environs changed rapidly and radically. Director Robert Fantinatto's Echoes of Forgotten Places makes the mistake of crossing the line from artistic to artsy by presenting commentary from historians via a television set positioned in a seemingly vacant lot, but this drawback is somewhat balanced by the addition of excellent bonus features, including the 1936 industrial film Steel: A Symphony of Industry—offering a glimpse of that lost world when it was still vibrant and pulsating—as well as an image gallery of 125 photographs. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)