The film is an absorbing and frightening document of the impact of industrial expansion and urbanisation on the physical world. In terms of visual impact, it features hugely impressive shots and video footage focused mainly on the damage caused to Chinas landscape from quarries, damns, power stations, factories and the affects of electronic waste. Briefly the film also moves to India where it features a beach littered with shipwrecks and a disturbing sequence showing young workers standing waste high in the oil they are collecting from the stricken ships. Burtynsky allows the images to do most of the talking without needless explanation. The message of the film is well delivered and leaves no doubt in the mind as to its point. However, the films message like Burtynskys’ photographs, focusses on the results of industrialisation and economic growth in the east without reference to what drives that growth in terms of the demand from the West, barring a short sequence of overhead highway video footage. The film could have perhaps made some visual links to over weight, over consuming affluent (allbeit in a virtual sense) westerners to show what creates the demand for such absurd production in the east, but instead curiously opted to show an affluent Chinese citizen to show the changes China is experiencing. I would argue that much of what young China aspires to is driven from the West and after decades of being shown what, materially, China is missing out on, they too want the same. For me this point was missed or not made in the film unless it passed me by. If the film is targeted at designers or those who are mindful and educated as to their part in the problem, then perhaps Burtynsky didn’t feel it necessary to point the finger consumerist capitalism as the route of the problem. If though it was intended for a broader audience, then I feel he missed an oppurtunity.
http://library.senecacollege.ca/Audio-Visual/VOM/2008_04_01_vom.html
