Manufactured Landscapes

Most of the things in the world are now made in China for consumption in the west. This documentary gives us a close look at what this involves. The opening shot tracks endlessly across an eerily silent factory floor. Appliances are assembled and components recycled on a scale which is quite hypnotic. This film successfully turns its critique back on itself by suggesting that art is not above this process. We follow internationally renowned photographer Ed Burtynsky through the manufacturing badlands as he converts environmental degradation into graphic compositions for the appreciation of western audiences such as ourselves. Jennifer Baichwal’s images perform a similar function as the staggering scale of China’s industrialisation is set at an aesthetic remove by a now-familiar ambient music wash. For all its contemplative style, you will find this a quietly confronting experience, leaving no safe moral high ground from which to judge our implicit participation in the global system.