I started watching Manufactured Landscapes while exercising on a treadmill. You may think that a treadmill is not an appropriate place to watch a documentary film, but in this case it might be, especially the opening scene, a tedious eight-minute long track of the assembly floor in a huge Chinese manufacturing factory. The entire operation feels like one giant treadmill where workers repeat the same task hundreds of times each day.
The subject matter of Manufactured Landscapes is unique; it’s probably worth risking your sanity as you watch the opening scene of the seemingly endless manufacturing floor with row after row of assembly tables manned by workers in yellow shirts. There’s a rule-of-thumb in filmmaking that even it you’re trying to depict boredom, you can’t bore your audience. In this case a “manufactured landscape” is what’s being depicted. After about 30 seconds of this opening tracking shot, you get it! The next seven minutes-thirty seconds is repetitive. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has said, ”at times it’s good to hold the shot, [that] meaning accrues in duration.” The “meaning” of this shot accrued in about ten seconds!
The redeeming value for the documentary is that both the cinematography and Burtynsky’s photography are excellent. The documentary explores industrial landscapes in China and in one sequence a beach in Bangladesh where they salvage ships for scrap. The problem with this documentary is the difference between observing a still photograph hanging on a wall and watching a film. You can stand as long as you want in front of a photograph, take it in and move on when you’re ready. But with a film the audience is captive so you can’t have everyone sit there with the same static shot, even to make a point, because once the audience reads the scene they will loose interest if nothing new happens. The reverse is also true, you need to give the viewer enough time to read the shot. There is a rhythm and pattern to editing. In addition you are dealing with a medium that requires action and reaction. The fact that the camera is in motion, recording a static situation does not create action that’s not there.
Overall the pace of this film feels like you are visiting a museum and looking at the work on the walls. After awhile you get sensory overload and need to take a break. In fact there are scenes of people walking around a museum gallery looking at Burtynsky’s photographs. On top of that at times you hear the fiimmakers discussing the shot, setting up shots and just being in the film. It all seems a bit self-indulgent with no obvious purpose except in one sequence where Chinese officials are seen trying to stop Burtynsky from taking photographs of the coal mining process in China.
There are vivid scenes in the film that convey the feeling that you’re there, in the landscapes depicted, experiencing these human constructed alterations to the landscape panorama. Other documentaries have approached this subject in someway. The Qatsi trilogy beginning with Koyaanisqatsi (life out of balance), Coppola, is one of the most famous. Manufactured Landscapes does approach some of the same subjects but without the sophistication and cinematic techniques of the Qatsi documentaries.
The imagery in Manufactured Landscapes is strong and vivid. For example the shots and scenes showing the massive equipment and resources used for the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China, are compositions that covey the textures and patterns of this mammoth and controversial undertaking.
A number of scenes are shown in black and white in the film for no obvious reason. Black and white, essentially shades of gray, is technically an abstraction, since most humans perceive the world in color. It seems like shifting between abstraction and reality should have some purpose that is apparent in the story. In Manufactured Landscapes it simply seems like a device with no particular significance beyond a transition to introduce color into the scene.
Even with its lack cinematic story telling technique, Manufactured Landscapes is worth watching. It is a montage that allows you to experience these industrial landscapes, their impact on the environment and to observe the people who live in those surroundings. Burtynsky makes the statement that he is not attempting to judge what is shown as good or bad. He is presenting it so you can make up your own mind.
Well, no matter how colorful and beautifully depicted these landscapes may be they do not seem in harmony with nature or being human. They feel more like a post apocalyptic toxic world where humans are like ants marching in unison to bring back food for the colony. These “Manufactured Landscapes” are, despite the aesthetics, depressing man made disasters.
J R Martin
TRAILER
Tags: Art, Documentary Film Review, Edward Burtynsky, environment
