Manufactured Landscapes

I really do watch a lot of documentaries on my own time, and lately have been pretty satisfied with the diverse styles and topics of docs I've been watching. One of my favorites this semester was called Manufactured Landscapes, directed by Jennifer Baichwal. It is based on the photography of Edward Burtynsky who is known for his imagery of what he's coined "manufactured landscapes", factories, dumps, wastelands of human created trash and terrain of disregarded technology. The film follows Burtynsky on some of his trips to capture his photos, and is able to give context to many of his works. The photo above is a still from the film and is of Chinese children sitting on piles of plastic and metal. The circular disks are the plastic circles with the numbers 0-9 from old school rotary dial telephones - manufactured in China, then dumped in China when there's no where for excess or the waste to go.

The film plays like a combination of a documentary and a photo essay. I started in photography, so I've started really liking these hybrid films. Recently seeing some of the work of Donna DeCesare and having photojournalism students in our class has really gotten me to refocus on photography, and making sure that each frame I film has the potential to stand alone as a photograph.

A good example of this hybrid, but also how film can show things and create emotions that photos can't, is the intro to Manufactured Landscapes, which is posted below. The intro is a solid EIGHT MINUTE tracking shot inside a Chinese factory. The first time I watched it, halfway through the shot I called my friend to tell them to watch this movie. As each minute ticks by, you think SURELY this shot is about to end...end....end. After the shot it shows a still photo from above with the title. Not quite the same. A single photograph could never capture the extreme scale of that factory, while also letting the viewer experience the sounds, energy, bustle, and personality of the people as they work as this amazing shot does.

Towards the end of the film it begins to look more at factories in depth, working conditions, and how people are affected. It is a very oddly gorgeous film, as Burtynsky is finding an ironic beauty in the destruction and mess that we've made all over the world. Slowly paced, but definitely worth checking out.