By Alice Preputnick; Photo Credits to Alice Preputnick
What do you do when your home is slipping away? When your family and the land you love are fading rapidly? These are some of the questions that are explored in the 2026 documentary “Time and Water,” which is one of the most beautiful pieces of media I have ever seen.
“Time and Water” tells the impactful story of Icelandic poet Andri Snær Magnason as he parallels his family, specifically the life of his grandfather, with the rapid melting of Iceland’s glaciers and the passage of time. Magnason started recording when one of his grandfathers started dying so he could hold onto his memory, but then he decided he would record everything he loved. Magnason said in the documentary that he is “holding onto dear life as it charges forward, trying to stop all that I love from slipping away.”
For a documentary, this film had stunning camera shots. It switched between old footage from Magnason’s grandparents to footage that Magnason filmed over the years, to footage that Pablo Alverez-Mesa, the cinematographer, filmed. Shots filmed by Alverez-Mesa were long shots of glaciers and nature. The camera stays on the landscapes for multiple seconds, and it really lets the viewer sit and reflect on what the speaker said.
I hardly ever watch documentaries. I usually find that none of them are especially interesting, so I tend not to watch them. However, this documentary was captivating. “Time and Water” is a love letter to the glaciers of Iceland. It’s a time capsule of what once was, meant to inform and warn the future generations. But it’s also a way to preserve the memory of his grandparents, for his children and for himself. Magnason says, “Maybe generational memory is the closest way that humans can experience the depth of time,” which perfectly captures what this documentary is trying to do. Like the glaciers, Magnason’s grandfather was fading away. His grandfather, Arni, had dementia, but before this happened, Magnason had filmed his grandfather talking about his memories of the glaciers. Arni and the glaciers are both time capsules themselves, holding the history of years before.
In “Time and Water,” Magnason mentions how many questions he wants to ask his grandfather Arni, but there is so much more he will never know. Like Magnason looks to his grandfather to learn about the past, the people of Iceland look to the glaciers to do the same. The deeper the blue on the glacier, the older it is. These glaciers have been in Iceland for about 2,500 years. They have been around for so much of history, and to run your hands along them is to have the past at your fingertips. Glaciers can’t answer the questions we might have about the past, but their existence proves it happened and time has moved on.
During the documentary, the people of Iceland hold the first ever funeral for a glacier, and Magnason writes a note on the plaque commemorating the glacier and its life. Before writing the letter, he asks, “How do you say goodbye to what you never thought you could lose?” His note is haunting: “Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you will know if we did it.”
When recording his grandfather during his last few days, Magnason said, “It’s as if recording him can transport him into a future where I can meet him once again.” Time moves so quickly. I wish I was born in a different time, and I wish the world wasn’t so destroyed by the passage of it. “Time and Water” is a beautiful documentary about familial love and loss and climate change. I’m not sure I can truly put into words how moving this piece of media was for me.