I'm not sure how much I actually enjoyed Manufactured Landscapes, an NFB documentary on Edward Burtynsky's photography. I think I would have much preferred to go see an exhibition of his photographs rather than sit through a rambling lecture which ultimately restated the same couple points over and over again. The visuals were stunning, obviously, and I think I preferred the sequences in Shanghai with people's kitchens spilling out into the crowded alley-streets so that "inside" and "outside" almost seem like artificial constructions. I've always been a fan of claustrophobic urban imagery and horribly dystopian "the future is now" visuals. I think my literary struggles lately have been getting me down too much but I feel excited about exploring more urban geography in my writing, because geography and setting have always been something I focus on -- I'm often more concerned about writing about a certain environment, first, rather than coming up with a character right away. I've been writing very spacious desert sequences and wet, swampy stories and now I want some urban sprawl. Expect some weird science fiction to come squirting out soon.
That kind of got away from the documentary. Damn. Point is: good visuals, poor-quality soundwork and repetitive narration. It didn't help that the Cinecenta projector blurred the images ever so slightly.