“Will your oceans be made of our glaciers?” Icelandic poet Andri Snær Magnason asks in the narration that plays over Time and Water, the beautiful new documentary from Fire of Love director Sara Dosa. Driven by Magnason’s family archives and some truly captivating footage of glaciers, it’s a melancholic ode to a world we are losing more and more of each day. Iceland is a nearly treeless country. It sits on tectonic plates that are pulling apart, resulting in an abundance of lava that prevents soil from getting to the depths needed for trees to grow in any quick way. There were once many trees, but the Vikings cut them all down for their ships and the like over a thousand years ago. It’s a place where some still believe in magic, which the breathtaking vistas make easy to understand why.
Iceland is full of rich history for which its people are very proud. The glaciers are a key part of that history, and they are melting at an exponential rate, thanks to climate change. This is not new information, though the speed at which they’re disappearing is constantly increasing and alarming. Time and Water is framed as a time capsule to be discovered by whoever survives the great, tragic changes to come. Dosa is a master of tone in the documentary space. It’s one of the key elements of her last documentary Fire of Love, a romance surrounded by dangerous volcanoes that earned an Oscar nomination a few years ago.
There is so much joy and sadness at the same time in Time and Water. Memories of family underlined by those who are no longer there. At one point, Magnason speaks of the passing of a relative as though that person just disappeared. For so long, he was there—”and then, he’s gone.” Consider this against his observation of a melting glacier: “I often think about the unsettling quiet of a glacier’s death.” This link between generations of family and the nature we’ve taken for granted is both obvious and poignant. We’re treated to beautiful Icelandic hymns and a lovely, understated score from composer Dan Deacon. Patient frames show us living glaciers, offering every possible shade of blue (the bluer the ice, the longer it’s been alive, we are told).
Photos and video from the past remind us of what was and what will never be again. Yet Time and Water often feels like a celebration, a reminder of what’s right in front of us. Whether it be glaciers or grandmas or flowers or children, there is love somewhere nearby. In lesser hands, this all may play a bit cloying. Luckily, Dosa is deft in her ability. Magnason’s words and images play with each other perfectly, building a bittersweet gnawing at the heart that will resonate with most everybody. Despite its lost memories and lost glaciers and change ecosystems, there is so much optimism here. Life goes on, after all. Until it doesn’t.
Time and Water premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.