Manufactured Landscapes

Last week I went to see a screening of Jennifer Baichwal’s film Manufactured Landscapes at Film Fourm. The film follows Canadian large-format photographer Edward Burynsky as he documents the vast industrialization of China with his view camera. Opening with an eight-minute tracking shot down the aisle of a factory, viewers have a long moment to observe the dizzying internal workings and feel the sheer scale of mass production in China. Never before have I had such a horrific moving image to attach to the next MADE IN CHINA sticker that I come across. Quickly, the rest of the film develops into a meditative inquiry into the human and environmental costs of such industry and the profound changes our planet is experiencing as a result. It raises important and, indeed, sobering questions about the impact that we, as humans, have on our environment. While many relevant questions were raised, I was left with no real answers. Albeit, these questions are, by far, much larger than any of Burtynsky’s fine art photographs – so large that the questions themselves may be too complex to be addressed “properly” by anyone in any film. And I’m curious about the choice to focus so much on Burtynsky, his photographs as the underlying medium and, ultimately, message behind the film – the content through which we are supposed to understand industry in China and the complicated questions raised in the film. In other words (not to say that much of Burtynsky’s work is not effective, powerful, or interesting) could more have been done with this film if this wasn’t much of basis for making it? And also, in the words of the Villiage Voice:

By finding beauty in appalling heaps of corporate waste and industrial devastation, is Burtynsky aestheticizing the plunder of the planet, and are we lulled into cowed complacency by his Olympian vantages?

Feng Jie #5, Yangtze River, China 2002 © Edward Burtynsky In this image, for example, Burtynsky had actually payed the man to return and re-walk his animal in order to get the composition just right for the photograph. Maybe it’s the lack of answers in all of these attempts to discuss environmental issues, my own frustration, that’s leading me to find fault in this film. As with the experience of looking at Burtynsky’s photographs, the documentary is both fascinating and unsettling – and is, undoubtedly, worth seeing if the opportunity arises. Until then, the trailer for the film can be viewed online. I know there was already quite a bit of talk, but I’d love for discussion to continue here as well. UPDATE: It may be worth noting that the current Time Magazine (July 9, 2007 issue) contains a six page spread on Burtynsky’s China series called “On the Job in China.”