Manufactured Landscapes

The documentary, “Manufactured Landscapes” is intended to examine industrialization and globalization through photographs and videos of landscapes.  Edward Burtynsky traveled to China and Bangladesh to gather photos and video for his book and this documentary.  It features various places where the landscape has been changed by industrialization and it describes various substandard living conditions endured by the people living in these places.  While I will say that I agreed with some of the films message, for the most part I didn’t like it and was not particularly affected by it. 

My first issue with the film was that Burtynsky used China as an example to describe the rest of the world.  While no country is perfect, China definitely ranks low on the list as far as human rights and environmental protection goes.  I can think of no other country in the world where you are only allowed to have one child and where hundreds of thousands of people are forced out of their homes so that the government can build a massive reservoir.  It seems to me that this documentary wanted to focus mainly on environmental concerns that the e-metal, oil, and coal industries are causing in China but to me the most important issue is that of human rights.  I’m not saying that I don’t pity the people of China and similar countries and wish to help them, I just think it’s a bit of a hyperbole to compare them to the rest of the world.

At one point in the film, Burtynsky argues that China’s huge, unethical, and inhumane oil industry is caused by world demand.  He basically says that China has the last of the oil reserves and that the country will be shoved back into poverty when that runs out.  This claim is just plain false, the United States has 2.3 trillion gallons of untapped oil just waiting to be used (Political Vel Craft). Perhaps we could help the people of China by creating our own energy, instead of depending so much on theirs. 

The last point I would like to make deals more with opinion than fact.  To me, the documentary was slow-moving and the point the director was trying to make seemed very vague.  At first I thought the main focus was on the environment, but then the rest of the documentary focused on people.  It took me most of the film to realize what the author’s main point was, a strategy which in this case I don’t think was very effective.  There was very little talking in the documentary, instead it was just landscapes, silence, and people working.  While this can be a very effective way to approach a topic to some people, it was not a very effective argument for me. 

I appreciate Edward Burynsky’s work as a photographer, his pictures truly are beautiful.  It wasn’t the pictures or the people I had a problem within “Manufactured Landscapes”, it was the argument he tried to make with the pictures.  I think if he presented the argument in a different way, even if it was the same argument, the message would resonate a lot better with audiences.

Sources:

Political Vel Craft. March 2011. 30 September 2013.