The American Experience: Panama Canal (2011)
**** (out of 4)
Another wonderful episode in the long-running series takes a look at the disastrous and eventual remarkable attempt at connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The 90-minute film goes through every aspect of the ten year journey that took thousands of lives, many debates and many different people simply leaving the project thinking it was impossible. For anyone interested in the subject I think it's safe to say that this is pretty much everything you'll want or need to know. Sure, if you want to know every little detail then a book would be better but there's no question that this documentary goes into every detail about the building of the canal. There are several historians on hand to take us from the early stages including the French trying and failing all the way up to the very end once the canal finally opened to its first ship. We get all the details about the many people who were put in charge but eventually resigned and we also hear about the racial issues and differences in the money people were making. The most fascinating stuff is just dealing with the various issues that came up during the building and when you see the land, the jungle and the water it's simply amazing that they were able to accomplish what they did.