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Manufactured Landscapes

(2007)

90 min. Zeitgeist Films.

Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky specializes in arresting photography of "manufactured landscapes": factories, quarries, mines, recycling plants, shipyards, dams, and heaps of rubble. Trailing Burtynsky on a Chinese expedition, filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal succeeds in giving us a strong impression of the artist's work while also cinematically expanding his frames. This tactic works most strikingly in the meditative, film-opening dolly-shot of a Chinese factory, but other wonders follow in a visual tour of China on the move. Burtynsky never comes into focus as an individual, but he does discuss his supposed artistic neutrality while talking plenty of how man's industry is "creating problems that run deep." No need: the stunning visuals on display speak for themselves.

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