Manufactured Landscapes, directed by Jennifer Baichwal and featuring the photography of Edward Burtynsky, is a surprisingly good piece about Burtynsky’s documentation of global production and its effects on the planet. Initially, I felt like I might be watching a mark off of Baraka directed by Ron Fricke in 1992, one of my personal favorites. However, as the film progresses through shots of massive earth mover trucks that look like toys driving against the massive strip mining operations, it begins to define itself in slightly different terms.
The film opens with a long, rolling dolly shot through a giant production plant in China, accompanied by cinematography from Peter Mettler. Moving through what Burtynsky describes as “the largest industrial incursions I could find,” the sequence does an excellent job of grabbing your visual attention and placing you in a mindset ready to observe and listen. Still photographs of altered landscapes, wide zooms revealing mass pollution, and sweeping pans showing human-driven change make you feel like a giant looking down on an anthill.
Discarded motherboards that resemble a strange blue green haze mark the transition into the middle of the film. Up to this point, the story moves slowly, building its visual argument, but with the introduction of technological debris the documentary becomes more pointed. Scenes of burning, stripping, and discarding electronic waste into unmanaged locations, where computer parts pollute waterways and clutter the landscape, stand in stark contrast to the likable term recyclable goods. The film reinforces this idea by moving through massive container ship yards and then bringing us full circle to muddy graves where these objects are torn apart for scraps. It is overwhelming to see both our great accomplishments and their demise presented side by side.
As the film closes, Manufactured Landscapes avoids assigning blame. Burtynsky does not point a finger, and Baichwal allows the imagery to speak for itself. With music by Evelyn Glennie underscoring the scale of what we are seeing, the film leaves you in awe of how much larger these systems are than any one individual and wondering what role we play within them. The mountain sized gashes in the landscape, the colossal carcasses of container ships, and the endless arms of cranes moving earth make the mind reel. The film ultimately reflects our chosen course on the planet and the consequences that follow, leaving the viewer to decide what to do next.
Trailer:
Further information:
http://www.filmforum.org/films/manufactured.html
