Has anyone seen this documentary yet?

More Inconvenient Truths

China's industrial footprint, writ large

by Jim Ridley

June 20th, 2007 12:26 PM

 

Nothing illustrates the monstrosity of globalized commerce more vividly than the lateral tracking shot that opens Jennifer Baichwal's mesmerizing documentary Manufactured Landscapes. Maintaining a glacial, Kubrick-like creep for eight minutes of screen time, the camera glides almost a third of a mile through the bubble world of one titanic Chinese factory. Afterward, massed on the street outside in color- coordinated formation as far as the eye can see, the many thousands of employees are robbed of all individuality. Pictorially, though, the image is breathtaking, even playful— Metropolis as designed by Busby Berkeley.

 

 

The sight should scare the hell out of environmentalists as well as economic protectionists. But Baichwal's meditative, mood-altering film—strongly recommended to fans of Koyaanisqatsi and An Inconvenient Truth, and no less important than either—is more suggestive and unnerving than a mere jeremiad. Its focus is photographer Edward Burtynsky, who specializes in macroscopic panoramas that show how industry has smashed, scarred, and altered the environment. With cinematographer Peter Mettler working to approximate Burtynsky's eye-in-the-sky perspectives, Baichwal follows the artist's travels through China, where he leaves government officials puzzled over why he'd rather photograph, say, the Martian desolation of Shanghai's endless Bao Steel yards than pandas and temples.

 

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Very interesting. I am going to have to see it.

 

One thing I have to point out is how we hate the business end of living. We love the cheap goods but hate to see them manufactured. Always have. No matter the method. We dislike animal processing, but eat the beef. etc.