Manufactured Landscapes plot
"Beauty transformed."
Photographer Edward Burtynsky travels the world, photographing landscapes that have undergone changes due to industrialization and manufacturing processes. Like no other he succeeds in depicting the monumental beauty of mines, quarries, factories, office complexes, dams, waste heaps and other large-scale human works. This film is a portrait of this artist, but through small interviews with bystanders and recordings of the magisterial landscapes that Burtynski photographs, it is also a meditation on the impact of man on his environment. This is illustrated with images from the heart of industrialized China: the Three Gorges Dam, the hyper-urbanization of Shanghai, megalomaniac factory halls, endless waste heaps.