Manufactured Landscapes
Manufactured Landscapes Image
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Metascore
79 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critics What's this?

User Score
7.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 7 Ratings

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  • Summary: Manufactured Landscapes begins as a portrait of acclaimed Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, who specializes in large-scale images of vast industrial landscapes. It quickly develops into a meditation on the human and environmental costs of the permanent and profound changes our planet is experiencing. Focusing on Burtynsky's images of China as it undergoes an unprecedented transformation into a 21st century powerhouse, the film’s surface is beautiful, its implications frightening. Largely shot by Peter Mettler, it captures a brave new world that manages to be both luscious and unutterably repellent, often simultaneously. (Film Forum)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 16
  3. Negative: 0 out of 16
  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Baker
    100
    Leaves its audience with many troubling questions. Among them: Should a film console us with its own brilliance when it aims to discomfit us with its content?
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: Peter Debruge
    80
    This landmark glimpse into China's modern-day industrial revolution becomes something more -- a profound, open-ended meditation on man's physical impact on his environment.
  3. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Jim Ridley
    80
    Nothing illustrates the monstrosity of globalized commerce more vividly than the lateral tracking shot that opens Jennifer Baichwal's mesmerizing documentary Manufactured Landscapes.
  4. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    50
    Feels constrained and rather dutiful, no matter how passionate these people are about what they're observing.

See all 16 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 2 out of 3
  1. Mikeyj
    9
    I saw a presentation of this doc put on by the Art Gallery of Hamilton [,Ontario]. The director was present and we got some interesting insight into how she tried to approach the topic: the rapid industrialization of china, without being biased. Some people did comment that the images/cinematography on it own conveyed that middle ground but that the score (using mostly industrial-like sounds) does lead the viewer somewhat. I felt it was mostly effective in being unbiased and found it both beautiful and horrible to watch at the same time. It's shocking to see what happens to our recycling, the cities being torn down to facilitate a giant damn and in general the greater harm for profit & progress. I do think a compilation of images from all nations, however improbable, would have been more effective. So one can not sit smug at home and think themselves separate. Although it's hard not to come to the conclusion that China is moving much too fast for its own good, playing catch up to our mistakes, but with the knowledge to know better.… Expand
  2. photon
    3
    This movie has some arresting images and interesting moments when people associated with gargantuan dams and factories are interviewed. But it takes a strangely fawning attitude toward the photographer Edward Burtynsky. We see Burtynsky looking remarkably Al Gore-like, pacing on a stage somewhere, intoning his thoughts on whatever; we see Burtynsky visitng factories and salvage operations and taking pictures. I recognize that Burtynsky has taken some good photographs of unorthodox subjects, finding an eerie beauty in industrial wastelands. But the photographer's grandstanding is unbecoming and as a subject he is uninteresting -- or perhaps the film, taking it for granted that viewers already view Burtynsky as a hero, feels that establishing the man's credentials rather than simply burnishing them is a waste of time. I have nothing at all against Burtynsky, but he isn't Richard Avedon or even Al Gore.... In the end the viewer is confused... is this a movie about a photographer or is it about the human and environmental downside of a globalized consumer culture? If it's the former I give this movie a score of 2; if it's the latter I score it 5.… Expand
  3. TastyJamProject
    2
    Equivalent to staring at a wall for it's running time. What could have been an interesting documentary on Burtynsky's art comes off as pretentious and unnecessary. It all amounts to a big "so what" when it should and could have been so much more.… Expand

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