Beavers is an IMAX Classic

By Stephen Harrison
When it comes to advertising for documentaries, the cartoon poster and equally silly tagline for Beavers, "The biggest dam movie you ever saw," don't inspire confidence. In the spirit of judging books by their covers, I walked into the theatre prepared for thirty minutes of over-the-top tedium, and possibly talking beavers. I'm happy to report that I was wrong: Beavers is the best film I've seen on an IMAX screen.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have been so cynical. When I told a friend I was going to see Beavers, she clapped her hands in excitement. The 1988 Beavers is much older than the other offerings currently playing at IMAX Victoria, and she had seen it nearly a dozen times as part of a Canada Day tradition.

According to the IMAX host, as far as Canadian content goes, "it doesn't get more Canadian than this." She introduced Beavers as a Canadian-made film about a "very Canadian subject," shot on IMAX, a Canadian technology.

You might not swell with national pride while watching Beavers, but that's hardly the point. The film follows a year in the life of a pair of beavers as they start a new family. They battle their way upstream to locate a site for a new dam, where they transform the forested landscape into a sizable lake. It's an impressive feat: as the beavers exhaust their food supply, they build the dam higher and wider for easy access to fresh supplies of wood.

Dam-building is old-hat for beavers, though, and it's the insight into the day-to-day lives of these animals that's the most interesting. Who knew that a beaver struggling to reach a leaf sounds remarkably like a human baby?

The filmmakers recognized that their subjects were more than a little ridiculous, and a lot of scenes are played for laughs. The life of a beaver is fraught with danger, especially when trees are felled with little regard for the whereabouts of one's mate. Attentive viewers will note that some shots are almost too good to be true, but no matter: the charm of Beavers wins the day.

In addition to its engaging story, the cinematography is no less impressive. The brightly-lit scenery and underwater photography are well-suited to the IMAX screen. I have not seen an IMAX film that is quite as memorable, and I can recommend Beavers without hesitation.

As a bonus, this film can also be entered into evidence in the debate over the future of our national emblem. Beavers beat bears. Period.