Review of Waste Land (2010) by Mike C — 15 Dec 2012

Interesting Oscar-nominated documentary from 2011. A successful Brazilian artist returns home and heads to the largest landfill in the world to complete a project with the workers who sift through the garbage to find recyclable material.

It's an odd feeling seeing these people. Some seem happy, and it is honest work and they probably do not know better. At the same time, they spend all their time either digging in trash or living in it. Very miserable conditions. Vik comes in and shows some how unhappy they are. And some of these could be very good people in another world. But he takes a handful of them and makes art with them and transforms their lives.

The art itself is a little mindblowing. Vik takes regular black and white photos, makes them huge and projects them onto a floor where the workers can place garbage to recreate the photos. A photo is taken and that is the photo that is sold...trash making up a photo of the trash pickers. It makes sense when it's large, but in photo form, it's just hard to imagine the scale of the original work.

Did not know it was Oscar nominated while I watched it. Thought it was good but not necessarily great. Glad to see it got some attention however because sticking up for workers is always good, and art is usually good.