Resources are vibrant and seemingly endless when films depict abundance stereotypically. Some films, like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, take abundance to a whole new level. Cloudy even manages to blur the lines of food and water, swapping rain for food. However, abundance is not necessarily reality. Provocative works that display water and food scarcity challenge the dominant narrative of abundance in film. Feature dramas like También la lluvia depict the digging of a seven-kilometer ditch for water, and the popular struggle against private water development. Documentaries like The Water Front examine how a city in a nation as developed as the United States can struggle to maintain water infrastructure. Documentary films like Food, Inc argue for an evolution (but not too much of an evolution) in the food industry. And Gasland prominently highlights the presence of methane in drinking water, purportedly as a result of fracking, as an issue affecting the health of both humans and animals, including livestock.

Los Angeles, California, epicenter of the global film industry, is a good example of the deceptiveness surrounding abundance in film. Despite an on-screen appearance of prosperity, lush greenery, and exquisite food in some films, the city is, in reality, reliant on an incoming flow of food and water from elsewhere. The Aqueduct Between Us, a 40-minute documentary film by AnMarie Mendoza, retraces the Los Angeles aqueduct system back up to the Owens Valley hundreds of miles away. Southern California Native American activists share the history of forcible relocation that paved the way for aqueduct construction and make clear that water is more than just liquid: water is life. While Food, Inc may not directly be about Los Angeles, it does show how U.S. consumers, arguably especially those dwelling in large metropolises like Los Angeles, have come to rely on far-away, overtly exploitative factory farming for meat and dairy products. And in a fashion hyper-consumerist LA no doubts appreciates, Food, Inc encourages consumers to shop away the problem by simply buying products with better sourcing.

The class-ignorant Food, Inc sharply contrasts with the class- and race-aware The Water Front, a documentary that explicitly centers the nature of Highland Park, Michigan, the city it features, which is poor, aging, and overwhelmingly Black. The Water Front allows Highland Park’s residents to show their fight for affordable, safe water honestly, without holding back. And Highland Park wasn’t just fighting for their water, they were also fighting against unelected managers appointed by the governor who wreaked havoc in their town, a tragic foreshadowing of the situation that would develop in another Michigan city, Flint.

Further, the Spanish film Tambien la lluvia adds another layer of context to water and survival: international development. The film juxtaposes locals’ efforts to dig a seven kilometer water ditch to connect to a well with the development of water infrastructure by a large, fictional corporation from abroad. The residents insist on use of infrastructure of their own, no matter the challenges. Giving in to the private water infrastructure is not an option, particularly because it's simply too expensive to afford.