Manufactured Landscapes
Jennifer Baichwal
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Plot Summary
Manufactured Landscapes is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of "manufactured landscapes"—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris. The film follows him through China, as he shoots the evidence and effects of that country's massive industrial revolution. With breathtaking sequences, such as the opening tracking shot through an almost endless factory, the filmmakers also extend the narratives of Burtynsky's photographs, allowing us to meditate on our impact on the planet and witness both the epicenters of industrial endeavor and the dumping grounds of its waste. In the spirit of such environmentally enlightening hits as An Inconvenient Truth and Rivers and Tides, Manufactured Landscapes powerfully shifts our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it, without simplistic judgments or reductive resolutions.
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Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
84%- Reviews Counted: 61
- Fresh: 51
- Rotten: 10
- Average Rating: 7.3/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Rotten: Feels constrained and rather dutiful, no matter how passionate these people are about what they're observing.
Fresh: Again and again, Baichwal tapers passages of her film toward resolution in the form of a finished picture by Burtynsky, telescoping her vision and his.
Fresh: A mesmerizing work of visual oncology, a witness to a cancer that's visible only at a distance but entwined with the DNA of everything we buy and everywhere we shop. We are not in charge of this, you may want to reply. If not, who is?
Fresh: Without browbeating, hectoring, lecturing or sermonizing, Manufactured Landscapes makes an inelegant point elegantly. The point: Humanity is altering the landscape drastically and by implication irrevocably.
Customer Reviews
Worth watching
I watched this movie in one of my photography classes in college and was amazed by the work. Its definately a movie worth watching if you appreciate photography
Beautiful Cinematography and thought provoking
This Ed Burtynsky film was played in my Technology & the Environment class and really shows the part of consumerism that is out of sight, out of mind. The film and beautiful stills evoke a sense of consciousness of yourself and society's bad habits, and the horrific effects that are a detriment to many other people you may never meet or know about. I highly recommend this documentary, and to show it to everyone you know, so they too know the damaging impact our society has on our earth and other human beings, just like us.
The Horror.
I wouldn't categorize this film as a Documentary. It's a monster movie. With Humanity serving as the villain, and the victim. The story is told with a masterful artistic sense. It's combination of images and sound is magic. If ever there was a film in need of a sequel -- this is it. Simply due to the fact that the serial killer that we see on the screen is still at large.
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