The first 5 minutes of Jennifer Baichwal’s Manufactured Landscapes truly amazed me.
As through out the film, I believe the director succeeded both in delivering a
meaningful work of art and keeping her audience captivated.
Manufactured
Landscapes begins with a long travel showing rows of workers in a Chinese
factory. No music is added; only the sounds made by laborers and their machines
can be heard. This immerses the spectator into the factory’s activity. I almost
felt like I was there, among the assembly lines.
The first shots also served an informative purpose. I found
it interesting to be simply shown what goes on in a Chinese factory. The
absence of comments allows the viewer to reach his own reflections. Jennifer
Baichwal doesn’t show the assembly lines under a particular light, her opinions
and biases are left aside.
I think the choice of a relatively distant camera also
succeeds in capturing the workers’ emotions. The camera doesn’t interfere with
their work; only occasionally do laborers even notice its presence.
Images of the factory and the unnatural sounds made by
machinery introduce the focus of the documentary: humanity’s transformation of
its environment. The viewer wonders whether the western world’s material
comfort is worth such sacrifices in developing countries. How has our society
created the need for mass production? Is this Chinese factory a sign of
progress or unreasonable consumerism?
I had a very different experience when watching this film. I was bored from the moment it started and the factory opening scene was not at all captivating to me. To get interested I have to be stimulated by music and words. This is a very interesting point though in showing that different people learn differently.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you about the success of using no soundtrack for certain scenes. The lack of stimulating several senses at one leaves the viewer feeling as if there has not been a tone bias delivered through a song or certain melody. I had more of a focus on the environmental injustice that was being shared throughout the film, but I liked that you looked at the documentary objectively.
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