Manufactured Landscapes
This is a stunning film. A visually rich report on the costs of development that is effective because Edward Burtynsky’s photographs, which serve as the focus of this documentary by Jennifer Baichwal, reveal that industry can be as monumental and awe-inspiring as the Grand Canyon. In fact, the point of the movie is to show that there is no Grand Canyon left any more, and, what you have instead, when you go to a place like China, are giant mountains of discarded computer terminals sent back as waste from the rest of the world. It is not an unending herd of running antelope that stretches to the horizon–it is workers in bright uniforms leaving the endless rows of worktables. (And, in minutes, all are gone except for one who has fallen asleep out of exhaustion.) Edward Burtynsky is an amazing photographer, and, a couple of times, he speaks of epiphanies that made him connect his own habits of consumption with what he saw as a worldwide depredation of natural resources and even human exploitation; but the film-makers don’t ever attempt to go beyond Burtynsky’s own words and images, and we might sometimes be in danger of being mesmerized by the images, and even invest in a mythology of Chinese industry. Who is out there documenting the wasteful consumerism in the West which has altered forever the natural and human geography of the world?
Watch the film’s trailer here.
Amitava, I’m often astonished at the way posts on your blog and on Jim’s go. Please read his post(s) on Burtynsky: http://politicstheoryphotography.blogspot.com/2007/06/burtynsky-politics-redux.html
Comment by Space Bar — July 2, 2007 @ 12:07 am
The trailer is amazing. Where can one get their hands on the actual movie. Is it on netflix ??
Comment by arZan — July 2, 2007 @ 12:45 am
I was grateful to the film for introducing me to the photographs of Edward Burtynsky, but I’d rather have watched it with the sound turned off. The words didn’t add much. Burtynsky is scrupulous about not wanting to stand in front of his work, not wanting be the purveyor of a discourse around and outside the photographs, and I think that’s fine. Not every artist has to be an artist of the “artist’s statement.” But in that case, I’d rather not listen to his few bland, cautious assertions (ie, “we’re changing the planet”) while I’m looking at the photographs. More interesting than the sections on Chinese industrialization, at least to me, are the pictures of sub-proletarian work: toxic, difficult jobs done completely by hand, like removing valuable metals from computer scrap, or dismantling container ships by hand. I think a great double bill would be this and Darwin’s Nightmare, in which there’s a hellish outdoor “factory” –a smoking, muddy pit — where fish carcasses are processed by hand.
Comment by Carceraglio — July 9, 2007 @ 1:03 pm
This image–along with several more of Burtynsky’s China photographs–is currently on display in the lobby of the office where I work (as are the Guantanamo ones you mentioned in a below post). It’s amusing to watch how effectively they draw people’s eyes–no one walks past unawares. Looking forward to seeing the film as well; EB spoke about some of the same themes at the opening.
Comment by elizabeth — July 10, 2007 @ 4:03 pm