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Manufactured Landscapes

Manufactured Landscapes is a feature length documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of ?manufactured landscapes? ? quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams. He photographs civilization?s materials and debris, but in a way people describe as ?stunning? or ?beautiful,? and so raises all kinds of questions about ethics and aesthetics without trying to easily answer them. The film follows Burtynsky to China as he travels the country photographing the evidence and effects of that country?s massive industrial revolution. Sites such as the Three Gorges Dam, which is bigger by 50% than any other dam in the world and displaced over a million people, factory floors over a kilometre long, and the breathtaking scale of Shanghai?s urban renewal are subjects for his lens and our motion picture camera. Shot in Super-16mm film, Manufactured Landscapes extends the narrative streams of Burtynsky?s photographs, allowing us to meditate on our profound impact on the planet and witness both the epicentres of industrial endeavour and the dumping grounds of its waste. What makes the photographs so powerful is his refusal in them to be didactic. We are all implicated here, they tell us: there are no easy answers. The film continues this approach of presenting complexity, without trying to reach simplistic judgements or reductive resolutions. In the process, it tries to shift our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it.

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  1. Please take down Manufactured Landscapes from your website.
    Mongrel media controls the Canadian distribution rights for the film. Streaming the film violates both Mongrel’s distribution rights and the filmmakers copyrights.

  2. Impacting work – powerful artistry, punctuating that which belies seemingly inocuous culture.

  3. This is awesome. thanks zeltiq

  4. I liked it too, but what`s up with black and white and no text. Like Who the hell know mandarin outside of china ?! Did he think people from china would watch it? They don’t have time. Well my final verdict is 7 still an educational video on how they live inn poorer countries. 

  6. The New Heaven and the New Earth. 1a Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.* 2I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem,* coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.b 3I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.c He will dwell with them and they will be his people* and God himself will always be with them [as their God].* 4He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, [for] the old order has passed away.”d

  7. Learn some Mandarin, it will surely be worth it in your lifetime.

  8. Why can’t they translate any of the chinese? It’s retarded. I skipped a lot of it, because I can’t stare at pictures and videos of “crap”, and listen to chinese people for 2 HOURS!

    I liked the pictures, but I don’t wanna watch a documentary with almost no dialog for 2 HOURS!