Product Details

• Actors: Vik Muniz
• Directors: Lucy Walker
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: NEW VIDEO GROUP
• DVD Release Date: March 15, 2011
• Run Time: 93 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B004CJQVQC
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,240 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Brazilian artist Vik Muniz combines visual beauty with social awareness. Waste Land--a documentary about Muniz collaborating with the trash pickers in a staggeringly huge landfill--achieves the same fusion. Muniz, a remarkably upbeat and earnest fellow, is almost just an excuse for the movie to investigate the lives of the trash pickers, who are amazing people living on the fringes of a highly polarized society. The documentarians capture startlingly open and complex interviews with a handful of men and women striving to maintain some hope and personal dignity in some of the worst circumstances imaginable. Their vibrance and vitality will make you want to live your own life more fully. The tricky ethical issues around the entire project get a substantial discussion; Muniz is aware of the potential for exploitation and capsizing these delicately balanced lives, but proceeds with fervor. The glimpses into his artistic process (and his ability to genuinely collaborate with his subjects) provide a striking mirror to the collective effort of the trash pickers as they fight to form a political association to better their existence. Waste Land will truly make you examine your own life and may well inspire you to live better. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

Filmed over nearly three years, WASTE LAND follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world's largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of "catadores" -- or self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz's initial objective was to "paint" the catadores with garbage. However, his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both the dignity and despair of the catadores as they begin to re-imagine their lives. Walker (Devil s Playground, Blindsight, Countdown to Zero) has great access to the entire process and, in the end, offers stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the alchemy of the human spirit.

Bonus Features: Extended Bonus Footage: Beyond Gramacho ; An Untold Story

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 59 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving And Inspiring--This Documentary About Garbage And Art Is So Much More Than I Expected March 18, 2011

By K. Harris HALL OF FAMETOP 10 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

I detest review hyperbole--people who gush and fawn over every film they see. It's not my style, and yet "Waste Land" might yet make a liar out of me. Lucy Walker's documentary about turning refuse into art held only a marginal interest for me initially, but I figured it would be like educational medicine. I was, however, instantly engaged in the most unexpected ways. Is the film about art, about class struggle, about recycling, about the human spirit? Yes to all. This multi-layered documentary is one of the most moving and entertaining films I've seen in quite some time. Trust me, its impact took me completely by surprise. I laughed and I cried as "Waste Land" is infused with both sadness and hope in equal proportion. Really a testament to perseverance, survival, and allowing yourself to dream--this heartfelt examination stands as one of my two favorite documentaries of 2010 and gets my highest recommendation.

Contemporary artist Vik Muniz is the featured lead in the film. Expanding his portfolio of intriguing art made from non-conventional material, Muniz embarks on a massive project in his native country Brazil. Going to Rio de Janeiro's largest garbage dump, he wants to utilize the natural resources there to make portraits of individual workers. A huge collaborative undertaking (the film spans almost three years), he gets the cooperation of the local union and enlists a select team of assistants for the project. He oversees the art, but the locals are its stars as well as the ones who assemble the actual final product. In doing so, they start to envision a world outside the daily confines of the dump. Walker begins with Muniz as the centerpiece for the story, but the movie evolves into a real character piece about those locals enlisted in the project.... Their stories and personalities are both engaging and enlightening. To see how this entire experience changed and moved them is undeniably memorable.

The film is an excellent study for those interested in the contemporary art scene. We see Muniz's process, journey to a London auction house, examine other art pieces, and end up in one of Brazil's most successful and popular gallery shows. But the film can also be seen as an ecological treatise as recycling is always at the forefront. One of the film's true heroes and stars is an individual who began a recycling industry completely unaided by government funding. But mostly "Waste Land" is about people and human nature. Few recent documentaries have brought me so close and involved me so intimately with their subjects--and I was both inspired and emotionally connected with every moment of their story. I loved it. KGHaris, 3/11. Read more ›

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best documentary of 2010 April 4, 2011

By Ted

Format:DVD

I'll be honest - my expectations going into this movie were not very high - a conceptual artist that I've never heard of is going to preach to me about how we're consuming too much and generating too much trash? No thanks.

My preconceptions couldn't have been more wrong. Vik (the artist) grew up in the lower classes of Brazil so he has a clear connection to the "pickers" and their circumstances. The characters are real people who are well developed - you understand how they ended up at the landfill and what they think about their work, their place in life and society.

You will not look at your job on Monday the same way after seeing this film. You will not blindly reach for the garbage can again either. This is such a powerful story with universal themes - I don't know why the movie hasn't gotten more attention. One thought on this: I watched the trailer after I saw the movie and it just doesn't make me want to see the movie.

Best line of the movie: "99 is not 100". Excellent film, highly recommended.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Uplifting and Informative March 5, 2011

By Lucero

Format:Amazon Instant Video

I saw this film in a festival in 2010. I was blown away. There is a lot of information about the lives of the people who participate in the project and the documentary is positive and inspiring.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Vik Muniz Asks if Art Can Change People, and Finds the Answer at a Garbage Dump. April 16, 2011

By mirasreviews HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

"Waste Land" documents a two-year project of Brazilian photographer Vik Muniz who, driven the question of whether art can change people, returned to his native Brazil to photograph "catadores" or "pickers" who collect recyclable materials at the world's largest garbage dump, the Jardim Gramacho landfill outside of Rio de Janeiro. His intention was to photograph a group of pickers, transform those photos into salable art, and donate the proceeds to the Association of Pickers of Jardim Gramacho (ACAMJG), a co-operative that represents the 2500 pickers who work at the site. Filmmaker Lucy Walker followed Muniz and his team around the landfill and studio as he got to know his subjects and they became more intimately involved in the project.

While Muniz' artwork might be most valuable for what it can do for the pickers of Jardim Gramacho, "Waste Land"'s value is in introducing the audience to a foreign subculture that most will have previously known nothing about. Even Vik Muniz, a Brazilian of lower-class background himself, was at first nervous about working at the landfill due to its proximity to the favelas, which are known internationally for their violence. That's probably because the only time we hear about the favelas is when there is a gang war of epic proportions taking place. But there was no war while Muniz was working on this project, and the pickers who lived in the favelas did not seem concerned about it.

The half-dozen pickers to whom we are introduced in the film are interesting, forthright people who speak frankly. Though many of them work at the landfill because they could not get more comfortable jobs, they view picking as no different from any other manual labor occupation -just smellier.... Tiao Santos, the young president of ACAMJG, has great ambition for his organization and is proud of what the pickers do. They remove a tremendous amount of recyclables from the landfill every day, including many materials that are rarely recycled in the United States. It is interesting to see what effect their participation in Muniz' portraits has, which seems to surprise to Muniz and the pickers as well. Art did change things, and "Waste Land" allows us to see the process unfold.

The DVD (New Video 2011): There are two bonus features. "Beyond Gramacho" (18 min) talks about what happens after the movie ends, the continuing aid that the artwork provided to the ACAMJG, and the impending closure of the Jardim Gramacho landfill, as explained by Tiao Santos, among others. "Untold Story" (10 min) is the story of a seventh picker who was not included in the film but who was the subject of a Muniz portrait. The film is in English and Portuguese with English subtitles. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Inspirational Film Highlighting the Human Spirit and the Rewards of Giving Back April 14, 2012

By Thomas M. Loarie TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

Lucy Walker's documentary "Waste Land," filmed over three years, is another must-see and worth the effort (despite some difficulty with the subtitles). Walker's film while a family movie is better suited for those 17 and older, not due to mature content, but due to the development of the plot and featured characters. The younger set will not have the patience to sit through the story development. Walker's story, while a story of the human spirit, centers on human dignity, the untapped potential of every human, and unconditional giving.

Walker focuses on Vik Muniz, a world renown modern artist who escaped from a lower middle class area of Rio de Janeiro and subsequently returns to his native Brazil at the peak of his fame to "paint" trash pickers of recyclable materials who work at the the world's largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, on the outskirts of Rio. Muniz investigates the lives of the trash pickers- who live with a special dignity and camaraderie - and then "paints" a number of them creating photographic images using garbage from the dump. Those whom he painted were hired to help in painting their image, and in this new "job" learned about themselves and the dignity of being a "picker."

These works of art were then displayed and sold for $50,000 each at shows in London and Sao Paulo. The featured subjects participated as guests at the shows, and achieved fame never anticipated. Proceeds from the sale of the art were given to the "pickers" union and the lives of those featured were changed forever as they discovered self-worth, the possibilities of life outside the dump, beauty, and the artistic potential of "trash."

"The Human Experience" gets "Two Thumbs" up, and provides a powerfully inspirational departure from mainstream movies and TV.