Manufactured Landscapes - B

In theaters. Not Rated, 90 minutes.

Manufactured Landscapes is a documentary directed by Jennifer Baichwal focusing on the works of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. His work focuses on the impact of humans on the earth, especially in the industrial and extraction industries.

The film opens with a 10 minute plus tracking shot in a drab manufacturing warehouse in China. The camera rolls silently and largely unnoticed by rows and rows of workers making textiles and small machines. The film is preoccupied with China and its industrial practices, but the role is explored more as the beginning and the end of the life cycle of Western products. Burtynsky's images and the limited commentary are inherently environmental, but the film doesn't get too preachy. The photos are presented as facts, which they are, and they serve to raise the West's consciousness of where its goods come from and where they go.

The most striking parts of the film are the portions showing the recycling of goods, including computers, in rural China after they have been used by the West and the portions regarding the Three Gorges dam. The dam is being built to dam the Yangtze river and create the world's largest reservoir, which will be the largest manmade incursion on the earth of all time. The most poignant images are those of villagers tearing down their villages, brick by brick, because they are to be flooded when the dam is completed and the government wants the ship channels cleared. Perhaps unintenionally, the film brought China's long-term viability as a world power into focus for me. The communist government there seems to be succeeding where Russia failed. They are feverishly producing and urbanizing the country, and its citizens are lulled into submission resulting in an increase of government power.

The film is interesting, but not great. Had I known it was an 'environmental' film I probably wouldn't have seen it. I'd love to dialogue with Burtynsky about humanity's role on earth - we are of part of nature, just like the animals, so how can what we do be seen as 'scarring the earth.' When a beaver dams a creek, surely one could say there are adverse environmental impacts, except that a beaver isn't a human. While I would rather the Chinese government not dam the Yangtze river, I don't think condemning it as an immoral act is appropriate. I think conservation and the protection of the earth from industry are both admirable goals, and worthy of pursuit, but I also think man is part of nature and that nature is more resillient than some environmentalists give it credit for.