I caught two other environment-relevant films while at Sundance that should be of interest to Gristmill readers, and there are a few more I missed that you should be on the lookout for as well.
First is Manufactured Landscapes, a film by Canadian director Jennifer Baichwal that follows renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky is widely known for his stark photographs of landscapes as altered by mankind -- quarries, mines, factories, vast e-waste recycling yards. The photographs are beautiful, though completely disturbing, illustrating the ways that humans have changed the very nature of the world and of our relationship to our surroundings.
In this film rendering of his photos, the director adds a narrative stream to the images, connecting the works and contemplating their relationship to each other and to us. The film focuses in particular on his work in China, highlighting the complexities of our relationship to materials and to each other -- globally and locally. It opens with a nearly 10-minute-long tracking shot down the endless rows of workbenches in a factory that creates irons and other familiar household products. The camera's ability to capture the magnitude of this landscape in both image and time adds a dynamic that Burtynsky's photos alone can't. But neither the photos nor the film offers any easy answers about the subject matter. The film is a meditation, forcing viewers to rethink the very nature of nature.
Best line heard while walking out of the film: "I fell asleep. But it was great."
The second film that I actually got a chance to see was Wonders Are Many, a film about an opera about nuclear power. Yes, really. Directed by Jon Else, this piece follows composer John Adams and playwright Peter Sellers as they develop a musical rendering of the life of Robert Oppenheimer, creator of the atom bomb. The opera focuses mostly on the process of creating the bomb - Oppenheimer and a bunch of 20-something military guys and their wives, out in the desert, trying to figure out how to blow stuff up. But the film weaves in the back story on Dr. Atomic between footage of the actors rehearsing the musical numbers, revealing a man plagued by patriotism, ethical obligations to the rest of the world, and his own ginormous brain. After spending years constructing the bomb, he would spend many more trying to contain the spread of nuclear technology, and carrying the moral weight of a man who had figured out the science of killing millions of people in a single second. Sounds depressing, right? Well, it is, but it's also hilarious -- Sellers is a hoot as he tries to get his actors to channel the right emotions in their song and choreography, and the whole idea of an opera about nuclear power is genius.
Best line heard walking out of it: "I wish I liked opera."
I also wanted to see The Unforeseen, a film that is apparently "a meditation on the destruction of the natural world and the American Dream as it falls victim to the cannibalizing forces of unchecked development." This lady saw it, and has this to say.
Climate Citizen: Mary Stuart Masterson
Happy birthday, EMA Awards ... and you other groups, too
Comments
View as Flat
Biodiversivist Posted 3:58 am
29 Jan 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Roz Cummins Posted 5:25 am
29 Jan 2007
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caniscandida Posted 11:19 pm
29 Jan 2007
"Wonders Are Many" sounds wonderful. I do indeed love opera, and think the world of Peter Sellers (perhaps not so highly of Robert Oppenheimer -- though his repentance is indeed an impressive story). Hopefully this will come our way before long.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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willa Posted 1:24 am
30 Jan 2007
It does seem like every film festival I've heard anything about has been set up this way, so there must be an actual reason, because it certainly wouldn't be hard to do what you suggest.
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Kate Sheppard Posted 2:14 am
30 Jan 2007
Kate Sheppard
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landmark Posted 5:13 am
25 Jun 2007
"Mesmerizing! Breathtaking!
Nothing illustrates the monstrosity of globalized commerce more vividly"
-THE VILLAGE VOICE
"Extraordinary, haunting, beautiful, insightful, touching and thought-provoking!"
-Al Gore
WATCH THE TRAILER
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.
JULY 6-12
NUART THEATRE
11272 Santa Monica Boulevard
just west of the 405 Freeway
West Los Angeles
Showtimes 7/6-12: Fri-Sun at 12:00, 2:30, 5:00, 7:30, 10:00;
Mon-Thu at 5:00, 7:30, 10:00
Buy tickets online
Please support this eye-opening film in its opening weekend!
For more information about the film visit our website
A Zeitgeist Films Release
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