by Kasia
I saw WasteLand. Amongst other questions, Vik Muniz asks “Can Art change people?” as well as, ” What happens when you temporarily remove people from their oppressive circumstances? What happens to them afterwards?” Those questions are definitely worth pondering upon. Jardim Gramacho in Rio is the largest landfill in terms of the volume of trash received daily. The “Garden” is surrounded by sex traffickers and the pickers are excluded from the society. Muniz calls it “ End of the line. Where everything that is not good goes, including people”. Maybe he’s been eavesdropping on our class discussion? We keep making that point throughout the different Bases.
My favorite line of the film is “ Millionaire’s garbage is mixed with poor person’s garbabe”. Given the terrible Classism in Brazil, it’s quite ironic how at the end of the day, the rich and the poor waste sits together.
One of the owners of the landfill states that if you keep adding on the garbage without certain guidelines, the jello-like ground might collapse. It reminded me of Lynch’s “Waste Cacotopia”. With that in mind, the pickers are essential to the Waste system. They make room for more waste to be added. There’s a scene where Muniz takes a helicopter tour of the Landfill. His words again, ring very close to our last class. He says looking down “From above, you don’t have any of the human factor”.
I can go on, but don’t wanna give the whole film away.
i like thinking about the idea that the garbage of the rich and the garbage of the poor end up in the same place. of course this assumes that both rich and poor are being served by the same waste collection infrastructure…or maybe not. are there more roads to this landfill than the official, institutional ones?