Production Costs

As sobering reminders of grim realities go, Jennifer Baichwal’s documentary Manufactured Landscapes is more aesthetically pleasing and less confrontationally grotesque than, say, a cinematic examination of the nasty trip that holiday hams take from the pigpen to the table. However, this 2006 film, which follows photographer Edward Burtynsky into China’s mechanized abyss, reveals the squalid conditions in which many soon-to-be gifts were crafted and the ecological wake of that production. In the opening shot, the camera crawls through a factory where 23,000 workers make irons. This scene emphasizes the scale of the process, with yellow-uniformed youth crammed like neon-buttered popcorn into a seemingly miles-wide warehouse. Largely silent, save its aptly industrial score, Manufactured Landscapes functions as a slide show. Viewers can absorb every detail as the film focuses for long stretches on Burtynsky’s gorgeous yet unsettling stills. The Spencer Museum of Art (1301 Mississippi in Lawrence, 785-864-4710) screens Manufactured Landscapes today at 2. Burtynsky’s photograph “Three Gorges Dam Project, Feng Jie #6, Yangtze River, China,” is on view in the Spencer’s 20/21 Gallery.
Spencer Museum of Art

Sat., Dec. 1, 2 p.m., 2007