Manufactured Landscapes Review

Earlier this week I finally had an opportunity to watch another of my library finds, Manufactured Landscapes. I would quickly recommend it to anyone. I think one of the reasons I was so drawn to this movie was how much it reminded me of the Salton Sea at times. It's beautiful yet a disaster.

The first thing I was struck by was the method of photography and how it creates so much space that is simultaneously claustrophobic. The opening shot of row after row of boxes and people working at stations in a Chinese factory seems endless. I can't even tell what the people are working on and it's strangely quiet. I don't think I realized and thought about how much is hand assembled.

I thought I could maybe finish cooking dinner while watching this movie, but I quickly discovered that wouldn't be possible. This movie demands too much attention.

This movie looks at various man made and man destroyed areas in Asia. It helps complete the story of what happens to all of those hazardous waste items when they are recycled. We have to take them to special places and not dump it in the normal trash, yet they end up being dismembered and recovered by people, not some crazy technology. It shows people paid to destroy their own villages in preparation for large dam construction. This is primarily done through images rather than words. The photography alone is worth watching and for once I wished I had a larger tv.


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