When in 2004 I watched the documentary The Corporation on TVO, I immediatly felt overwelmed with sadness and rage at the same time. The amount of information that the three-hours documentary made in Canada is massive, crude and true. It gives a glimpe of our impact on this planet from a different point of view, the poin where you can watch the entire big picture from far away and remain amazed.
In 2006 photographer Edward Burtynsky started to takes picture around the world of places on this planet affected by us humans. There is a compelling beauty that mixes at the same time with horror when watching landscaped carved by men to obtain recources like oil, diamond or coal to make rich only a very small percentage of people. This beauty is described as a majestic work of years of modification of our land to our advantages. These advantages are extremely lucrative but are a threat to the population on Earth because of the dire consequences that come along.
Abandoned mining towns that were the highlight of the 60s or 70s or rivers beds reshaped to divert water to factories that pollute rivers, etc. It's this kind of scenario that we forgot it existed.
The documentary takes snapshots of the Chinese factories and its workers, many are female, producing and assembling our goods inside warehouses big enough to have rows and rows of workers going as far as your eye can see. The massive labour that China has is incredible and strong, very strong and the Burtynsky explains his experience watching piles of recycled materials being scavanged by women of all ages in search of rare materials to collect.
There is a dune of metal scraps made mostly by iron and tin, these women wear masks to avoid breathing the fine poisenous dusts that the metals produce while being moved. Also another massive pile of circuit board that seems coming from computer motherboards is being disected to extract materials like gold and silver; the rest of the stuff is burnt and washed away into the nearest stream of water polluting rivers and the nearby villages where these people live and work.
As I watched for the second time this documentary I thought how guilty the western world is. We demand massive production at the lowest costs from countries like China that have their way to keep up with our demand by polluting the planet at an incredible rate. All those picture of China where there is a constant haze or fog are what we sell and buy in Europe and north America, from toys to clothing. The camera shots give a sound image of what really happens to the land that we take for granted, some of them are quite impressive for being landscaped that only sci-fi movies can describe; like the mining town in Pensilvanya that Burtynsky visited.
Manufactured Landscapes in a reminder of our need versus the rest, it is also a true statement of the impact that the industry has without stopping for a second, in fact the economy never sleeps, and you can see it as thousands of workers tirelesly continue to assemble all types of products that will eventually get exported with the typical “Made in China” label attatched to it.
It is a good flick, I personally liked it also for its electronic soundtrack that plays on a low volume with sad tones throughout it.-
| Directed by | Jennifer Baichwal |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Nick de Pencier Daniel Iron Jennifer Baichwal |
| Starring | Edward Burtynsky |
| Release date(s) |  2006 |
| Running time | 90 min |
| Language | English French |
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