Manufactured Landscapes - a feature documentary by Jennifer Baichwal (2006, Canada, 90 mins.)
... 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.
Review by John Harkness, Now / September 7 - 13, 2006
The director of Let It Come Down: The Life Of Paul Bowles and The True Meaning Of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia follows photographer Edward Burtynsky to China, where he continues his artistic investigation of the large-scale industrial despoliation of nature. There's an irony inherent in Burtynsky's work. On the one hand, he documents ecological devastation. On the other, the terrific photographer finds beauty in these landscapes and is drawn to their striking colours or intriguing compositional angles.
One of the things Baichwal does in the film is give us a look at what China's industrial revolution means, and its scale is staggering. The monumental opening dolly shot through a modern factory space has an almost Godard-like grandeur.
One of the things Baichwal does in the film is give us a look at what China's industrial revolution means, and its scale is staggering. The monumental opening dolly shot through a modern factory space has an almost Godard-like grandeur.
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