Movie Extravaganza - "Manufactured Landscapes"

"Manufactured Landscapes" is the second movie I saw for our school Movie Extravaganza. Here are my thoughts!

Manufactured Landscapes (2006) is a feature length documentary directed by Jennifer Baichwall on the work of Edward Burtynsky who makes large scale photographs of "manufactured landscapes". Burtynsky travels the world observing changes in landscapes due to industrial work and manufacturing. He defines manufactured landscapes as dumps for scrap metal, e-waste, recycling yards for ships or even huge factories such as those found in China. His large scale photographs are exhibited to the general public at galleries. His purpose is not to pass judgement on what is happening in the world but to visually communicate to the general public the world that we human beings are creating and for each of us to decide the pros and/or cons of this new world.
I loved this documentary on many levels: seeing the photographer at work, the director's way of shooting the documentary and Edward Burtynsky's photographs. I really enjoyed seeing a photographer of this calabore at work. It was interesting to see behind the scenes of the physical/technical set up of the camera and the shot as well as the politics dealing with people to get the shots he wanted. For example, when the crew wanted to set up for a shot of (I believe) piles of coal the corporation was concerned it would look negative. The crew explained how Burtynky's photographs look beautiful and then it was ok. This was interesting since the corporate officers obviously felt some sort of enviromental guilt to be so protective over a photographic image. It just goes to show that we are aware of the power of the photographic image and how it can be manipulated. On the techincal side it was interesting to see that he used a polaroid to check the lighting and composition before taking a shot.

I also found the subject matter of his work interesting. His photographs are both beautiful and unsettling at the same time. I find something very beautiful in visual percision, uniformity, and repetition. These elements are found in many of Burtynsky's images. It is an unsettling beauty since the photographs are of waste or structured uniformity in both enviroment and conformaty in the people. There is something striking about visual uniformity however I believe strongly in individuality in society. I find this brings out a conflict within myself. There are beautiful images of old tires, freeways, scrap metal cube piles and even piles of e-waste. It is also amazing what human beings can create both positive and negative. The images of the ships show the power and ingenuity people have to create such amazing and huge entitities that are so much larger than ourselves. This is also true of the amount of waste just one individual can create. The image of the workers going through the fields of toxic e-waste material shows how small we are in comparison to the waste we create. We are drowning in our own waste.

In terms of Jennifer Baichwall's direction, I really appreciated her transitions from one scene to another. The very first shot of the manufacturing plant in China was extremely effective in setting the tone for the documentary. The choice of the height of the viewpoint of the camera combined with the long continuious shot really created the overwhelming feeling of the plant. I also felt that the way she transitioned from the live shots of the scenes to framing Burtynsky's actual images was extremely effective. Also she continually transitioned from the subject matter in front of the moving camera to what was happening behind the still camera both visually and with the audio. I thought the documentary was creatively shot as well as intellectually interesting. I would recommend this film to everyone.