Manufactured Landscapes

Dir. Jennifer Baichwal, 2007

Writing about the modern human condition, the philosopher Hannah Arendt proposed a simple strategy for understanding our place in the world-- that we “think what we are doing.” In
Manufactured Landscapes Photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal set about not only to think, but to see what kind of world we are building for ourselves by examining the productive forces and the detritus of the global economy. With disquieting beauty, Manufactured Landscapes explores what Burtynsky calls “large scale industrial incursions,” monumental transformations of natural and human environments. Whether documenting Chinese assembly-lines, Bangladeshi shipyards, or superhighway infrastructure, this film offers up a contextualizing panorama of the people and places that go in to creating our ways of living and world of things. Equal parts cool poetic repose and pointed social realism, Manufactured Landscapes is a global vision of earth today.