Manufactured Landscapes
"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth..."
He created a beautiful world for us. One cannot look upon the Mount Everest or the Grand Canyon or Angel Falls without acknowledging God's hand.
However, the world looks a lot different than it did 2000 years ago or even 200 years ago. As the world population grows, the landscape changes. We have become an industrialized society. I watched the documentary Manufactured Landscapes and had my eyes opened to the realities of our world. I am from South Dakota, which has remained very rural, and have never been exposed to such industrialization until I watched this movie.
The film follows photographer Ed Burtynsky, as he captures the factories and pollution of China. He has video footage and still images of enormous piles of trash. I saw people digging through it, looking for scrap metal. They mask their faces, as to not breathe in the toxic fumes. The documentary shows the intense smog that fills the air. It shows young boys in oil up to their necks. The first few minutes of the film scan a factory of 23,000 people all in yellow uniforms as they assemble clothing irons.
Manufactured Landscapes was not the most exciting documentary I have ever watched. There was not a storyline at all. It just featured the random footage that Burtynsky collected, but that is not to say that it was not powerful. Oftentimes, the images are show in silence or with minimal music, echoing with the clanging of the workers. This allows viewers to develop their own emotions and reactions to what they see. Here are mine:
I was honestly appalled at the footage. I have never seen so much trash. I also felt pretty grateful for my fast food job once I saw the monotony of factory employment. However, I can still appreciate the Chinese people. This is their culture, their lives, their reality. When I look at it from that angle, it is actually pretty remarkable. As one Chinese man said in the film, "It's kind of like garbage. Still it appears beautiful through his camera." Though the world looks different than it did when God created it, it is still beautiful.
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Manufactured Landscapes is a 2007 documentary by Zeitgeist Films, directed by Jennifer Baichwal.
He created a beautiful world for us. One cannot look upon the Mount Everest or the Grand Canyon or Angel Falls without acknowledging God's hand.
However, the world looks a lot different than it did 2000 years ago or even 200 years ago. As the world population grows, the landscape changes. We have become an industrialized society. I watched the documentary Manufactured Landscapes and had my eyes opened to the realities of our world. I am from South Dakota, which has remained very rural, and have never been exposed to such industrialization until I watched this movie.
The film follows photographer Ed Burtynsky, as he captures the factories and pollution of China. He has video footage and still images of enormous piles of trash. I saw people digging through it, looking for scrap metal. They mask their faces, as to not breathe in the toxic fumes. The documentary shows the intense smog that fills the air. It shows young boys in oil up to their necks. The first few minutes of the film scan a factory of 23,000 people all in yellow uniforms as they assemble clothing irons.
Manufactured Landscapes was not the most exciting documentary I have ever watched. There was not a storyline at all. It just featured the random footage that Burtynsky collected, but that is not to say that it was not powerful. Oftentimes, the images are show in silence or with minimal music, echoing with the clanging of the workers. This allows viewers to develop their own emotions and reactions to what they see. Here are mine:
I was honestly appalled at the footage. I have never seen so much trash. I also felt pretty grateful for my fast food job once I saw the monotony of factory employment. However, I can still appreciate the Chinese people. This is their culture, their lives, their reality. When I look at it from that angle, it is actually pretty remarkable. As one Chinese man said in the film, "It's kind of like garbage. Still it appears beautiful through his camera." Though the world looks different than it did when God created it, it is still beautiful.
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Manufactured Landscapes is a 2007 documentary by Zeitgeist Films, directed by Jennifer Baichwal.
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