Manufactured Landscapes

Manufactured Landscapes - a feature documentary by Jennifer Baichwal

(Uploaded for post at urbancartography.com)

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is a feature length documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of 'manufactured landscapes' -- quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams. He photographs civilization's materials and debris, but in a way people describe as "stunning" or "beautiful," and so raises all kinds of questions about ethics and aesthetics without trying to easily answer them.

The film follows Burtynsky to China as he travels the country photographing the evidence and effects of that country's massive industrial revolution. Sites such as the Three Gorges Dam, which is bigger by 50% than any other dam in the world and displaced over a million people, factory floors over a kilometre long, and the breathtaking scale of Shanghai's urban renewal are subjects for his lens and our motion picture camera.

Shot in Super-16mm film, Manufactured Landscapes extends the narrative streams of Burtynsky's photographs, allowing us to meditate on our profound impact on the planet and witness both the epicentres of industrial endeavour and the dumping grounds of its waste. What makes the photographs so powerful is his refusal in them to be didactic. We are all implicated here, they tell us: there are no easy answers. The film continues this approach of presenting complexity, without trying to reach simplistic judgements or reductive resolutions. In the process, it tries to shift our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it.

2006, Canada, 90 mins.

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• ManufacturedLandscapes
• JenniferBaichwal
• EdwardBurtynsky

[occultdestroyer]

A very nice documentary! The world is totally fucked up

[michellemusic22]

I like how this documentary isn't biased or put out there to make you feel horrible and live in fear. He is showing us that it is what it is. Any negative feelings you have during this documentary is your own moral dilemma.

[ParadiseBlue369]

Fantastic clip.. we have ruined this wonderful planet. (2 people didn't like what they saw)

[owenswiderski]

Brilliant perspective on the environmental and health effects from this age of consumption.

[PuppyLawsuit]

this movie was unbelievably eye-opening!

[dmc3]

aren't all the opinions spouted in this film bloody obvious enough already? God most of these big art photographers do talk a lot of bollocks don't they. Wish they'd stick to just the visual commentary which is what they're famous for after all. No denying the images look good. Maybe I'll watch this film with no sound.

[komizutama]

It is to the advantage of those that profit from the destruction of our world that woud convince you that you can do nothing.

Remember the old adage: If you believe one person alone can have no effect, Remember the effect a single mosquito can have in a room at night.

[TheProgNerd]

@ RadioactiveChris:

Excellent points. People often forget how much of an impact one person can have on the future (or even the present.)

There's an old Chinese proverb, something to the affect of "the beating of a butterfly's wings will cause a hurricane on the other side of the world".

Everything is interconnected, and even if a small pebble is dropped in the pond, the ripples will always spread outward.