Your family need only watch the first 10 minutes of the mesmerizing documentary, “Manufactured Landscapes,” to fuel dinner-table discussions for months.
Director Jennifer Baichwal puts her camera on a track and pulls it through an enormous Chinese factory where thousands of workers assemble household irons. There is no commentary, no traditional documentary voice-over or explanation. Just acres and acres of workstations and the buzzing, clicking and chattering noises that accompany the repetitive work.
The shot keeps going, and going, and feels like a trick — no building is this big, is it? But yes: Eventually the camera pulls back to a perch that shows the enormity of this industrial complex.
Our reactions are mixed. The work stations seem clean, fairly humane as factory work goes; yet so much space, time, effort and ingenuity all going toward cheap devices that iron wrinkles out of shirts? How many thousands of other factories now dominate Chinese life? Do we need all these goods? How can Western nations possibly compete? Are these industrial landscapes beautiful or depressing?
Baichwal’s usually silent cameras move through other such mesmerizing scenes, including the breaking up of gigantic tanker ships on the mud flats of Bangladesh, the pouring of concrete into Three Gorges Dam in China, and the scarring from mines in North America. Her pictures stand alone, but she is also documenting the work of renowned still photographer Edward Burtynsky, who argues that the altered scenery constitutes a new form of art.
“Manufactured Landscapes” will be food for thought for your budding environmentalist, your young artist or any photographers in the family. With a high-definition TV (which I don’t have) the documentary would be hypnotic. Try the DVD and let your family ask: What is art, and what is the goal of human endeavor?
“Manufactured Landscapes”
Rated: Not rated; no objectionable material but aimed at mature audiences.
Best suited for: Teenagers with an eye for art, photography or environmental activism; adult fans of documentaries.
