WASTE LAND
UK/Brazil, 2010, 99 minutes, Colour.
Vik Muniz.
Directed by Lucy Walker.
Anyone who has the opportunity to see Waste Land will be very happy that they did. It is a fine documentary, full of human interest, with a heart for people and justice, and a pleasing art lesson as well.
It is the work of Lucy Walker who has made a number of very good documentary films including Blindsight about Erik Weihenmayer and a group of blind climbers and guides on Mount Everest.
The subject of this film is photographer and artist, Vik Munoz, who moved from San Paolo, Brazil, to Brooklyn and achieved great success. He has the idea to go to Rio, to the landfill tip of Jardim Gramacho and make some works of art from the recyclable materials collected by the catadores, the many men, women and children who pick materials, collect them and sell them to recycling companies. He wanted to do something to help the people – he did not anticipate what would happen: so much good.
Vik Muniz is a genial character – we even visit his old house in Sao Paolo where his father is interviewed and he is filmed with his 93 year old grandmother. But, first of all he had to learn about the landfill, the people, their backgrounds and how they worked. As he gets to know them, chatting, moving around with his associate, Fabio (and all the while Lucy Walker photographs, keeping completely in the background), he picks out half a dozen or more who will be the subject of his art. He poses them like classic paintings, especially photographing Tiao, the founder of the pickers’ association and a born leader, like Marat in the bath in the picture by Jaques-Louis? David. T
The photos are highly enlarged on the floor of a warehouse and Vik engages his subjects to help in bringing them to life with the recyclables, outlining, giving colour as well as an idiosyncratically modern look. This has a profound effect on each of them, a man who collects books and who can talk about Nietzche, Tiao who also talks about reading Macchiavelli’s The Prince and what it meant to him, Valter who is getting old, Isis who has had a hard life, Suelem a young woman with two children, Magna who has been forced to work in the landfill when her husband lost his job, Irma, an elderly cook who keeps the caradores fed.
Vik and his wife have an important conversation about whether one of the subjects should go to London for the auction of the main painting. Is it too much and deflating when they have to go back to work? Or, is it an opportunity that will mean new choices? It is quite exhilarating for Tiao and the auction is a great success.
There is great joy at the end when they all go to the Museum of Modern Art in Rio and see themselves on the gallery walls. There is even greater joy when Vik gives them their picture and they hang it on the walls of their home.
The film offers a lot of think about it terms of work, poverty, exploitation (at one stage, the money to pay wages is stolen by thieves), human dignity, opportunities and self-esteem. This is confirmed in the final information given about each of them.
And the art is quite striking too. Even better when we watch how it was done.
1. The quality of the documentary? Information, entertainment, shared experiences, exhilaration and compassion?
2. The framework: the TV show, Vik as a celebrity, Tiao as a celebrity? The compere and his ignorance and Tiao correcting him? The TV and media world – a necessity, a difficulty? Where people get their impressions?
3. The New York story, Brooklyn, the house, the studio, Vik and his visit to San Paolo, his city? Rio, the range of the city, beauty, ugliness, the terrain, the statue, the ocean, the landfill?
4. Vik and his life, his art, photography, his success in America, the incident of his being shot? His new project, giving back something to the people? His hopes?
5. His partner in Rio, their working together, arranging the interviews at the landfill? Spending the two years? The detail of the technical work for the art?
6. The landfill, the Jardim Gramacho? The extent, the range of rubbish? The visit by Vik and his partner to study the landfill, giving the information to the audience, the catadores? The history of Rio, the police, the dangers, drugs? Work?
7. Vik and his wife, their discussion about the project, the later discussion about the effect of such success on the catadores and their lives?
8. Vik on site, the scope of his work, looking at the garbage, walking in it, the catadores, their bags, their masks? The recycling? Rubbish coming from all the range of homes in Rio? The recycling, the rest for landfill? The numbers of catadores, their shifts for work, picking out the recyclables, the trucks, taking away the material, the financial implications, the vastness?
9. The workers’ organisation, the group, Tiao as the founder, the opposition to him, his wariness, rather subdued? Yet Tiao as a leader, welcoming, the other members of the committee, the importance for money, amenities, the wages being stolen? The library? The continued expansion?
10. The selection of the subjects for the art, as persons, their stories, appearance, interactions, forming a group?
11. Isis, her life, hard, her female perspectives on life?
Magna, her husband being unemployed, her concealing her work at the landfill from others?
Suyen, her age, the two children, hard life, her being pregnant?
Irma, her work as a cook, her age, her experience, her liking being with the people?
Walter, old, his wise sayings, ‘Ninety-nine is not a hundred’?
Tiao, his life, his background, appearance, genial?
The librarian, his stories, his hopes to build up the library?
12. The photos themselves, modelled on classic art, Tiao and his being Marat assassinated in the bath? The women and the Mother Courage kinds of photos? Suyen as a Madonna-like mother with children? The enlarging of the photos, on the warehouse floor, adorning the photos, using the recyclables? The whole group involved?
13. The reaction to the enlarged photos, the types of recycling, the photo for the exhibition and auction?
14. The travel to the United Kingdom, Tiao and his being the representative, the background of the auction, the details of the auction, all those present, the bids, the money, the success of selling the picture? Tiao and his experience in London, phoning home?
15. The other subjects of the art, the interviews with the media in Rio? Going to the gallery, seeing their pictures on display, a sense of wonder, their being overcome? Vik giving them the pictures, hanging in their homes?
16. The information given about what happened to each of them, the growth in self-esteem? The possibilities for change of occupation, attitude to towards life because of the experience?
17. The film as an art lesson in itself – Tiao and his discussions about literature, Machiavelli, visual art, the need for understanding – and the audience understanding this art and appreciating it?
