Directed by Jennifer Baichwal. (G) 85 min. Opens Sep 29.
Jennifer Baichwal's new documentary (which won the Best Canadian
Feature Film award at TIFF two weeks ago) is a kind of companion piece
to 2002's The True Meaning of Pictures. Where that film
interrogated the ability of a photographer to honestly communicate
human experience through close-up portraits, Manufactured Landscapes
is focused on a photographer -- the internationally recognized,
Toronto-based landscape photographer Ed Burtynsky -- whose work removes
humanity from the equation.
Shot largely on location in China, the film follows Burtynsky
as he plies his uniquely austere brand of eco-activism. The massively
scaled photos he takes of quarries, mine tailings and dump sites don't
come with pithy, what-hath-man-wrought captions, but they offer
hard-to-shake evidence of the planet's slow destruction. With its
impassive camera work (by this year's TIFF honoree, Peter Mettler) and
imperceptible editing, Manufactured Landscapes extends Burtynsky's artistic consciousness into the cinematic arena.
It's a beautiful but designedly disorienting film that, unlike
so many liberal agit-docs, strives to place an onus of interpretation
-- and responsibility -- on its audience. The vistas of its title may
look totally alien, but the film never lets us forget that, by dint of
our comfy environs, we are their creators.