Waste Land(2010)
dir. Lucy Walker (co-dirs. João Jardim, Karen Harley)
Art made from the people we throw away.
Where to watch: Kanopy and Plex (free) per aggregator; confirmLetterboxd ↗
Artist Vik Muniz returns to Brazil to work with the catadores who pick recyclables at Jardim Gramacho, then the world's largest landfill, outside Rio. He photographs them and has them help build huge portraits out of the trash they sort. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
Why it’s here
The film shows art as a way to give dignity back to people the economy treats as waste. What's punk is the pickers' own union and politics, and their refusal to be pitied. What's pedagogical is the open question the film leaves behind: an artist profiting from the poor's story, and whether a portrait changes a life. Good for a DoCR conversation about who benefits from the picture. Ties to Garbology.
Where This Film Lives
- Setting
- Brazil
Read Alongside
Books that share a topic, theme, or setting with this film.
Brazil
John Updike
An American tries to understand desire in the tropics.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
City of God
Paulo Lins
The Rio nobody puts on a postcard.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
The Brazil Reader
Varioius
Brazil in every voice it actually has.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Theatre of the Oppressed
Augusto Boal
Theatre as rehearsal for revolution. He was tortured for this.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Tropical Truth
Caetano Veloso
Arrested for electric guitar. The exile is the point.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
A Chair for My Mother
Vera B. Williams
They save every coin in a jar. For one perfect chair.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Automating Inequality
Virginia Eubanks
When algorithms become the new welfare office.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Bravo for the Marshallese
Holly Barker
The US tested 67 nuclear bombs on these islands. The people are still there.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST