Catadores Find Dignity at Jardim Gramacho

Waste Land is a 2010 documentary by Lucy Walker documenting Brazilian artist Vik Muniz' art creations with the help of garbage pickers in Rio's Jardim Gramacho (the "Garbage Garden"), the world's largest landfill. As a youth in São Paulo, Muniz had the "good fortune" to be shot in the leg by a rich kid, who paid him off; he used the money to buy a ticket to America. It is Muniz' grand vision that creates treasure out of trash and restores great human dignity to these catadores (Portuguese for scavengers) as they take great pride in their artistic creations that are auctioned in London and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo. Muniz fashions re-creations of famous paintings, including Jacques-Louis David's Death of Marat. The posed photographs are then re-created in giant Seurat-style pointillism with salvaged materials. In the end it is the elite world of art auctions that funnels monetary reward and recognition to these struggling workers.

Muniz' close rapport with six pickers is especially touching. Tiaõ is the head of the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho. Muniz and his wife (his ex by the end of this three-year effort) debate the ethics of taking Tiaõ to London to witness the auction. There is concern that after seeing how the other half lives, he could never return. In the end he makes the trip and is overwhelmed with pride. This is a film that is much more about humanity than about garbage, much more about a culture of catadores than a culture of waste.

Art and Pornography Make Strange Bedfellows

9 Songs is a 2004 British film directed by Michael Winterbottom (The Killer Inside Me). The title refers to the nine songs played by seven different indie rock bands (Dandy Warhols, Primal Scream, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Von Bondies, Elbow, Super Furry Animals, and Franz Ferdinand) and Michael Nyman (contemporary classicist) at Brixton Academy and other venues in London that complement the story of the film. The film is controversial in its depiction of unsimulated sex between its two co-stars, Kieran O'Brien and Margo Stilley, in a mainstream film that received a certificate for general release. The film is framed as a reminiscence from glaciologist Matt, while working in Antarctica, of his 12-month romance with American exchange student Lisa.

It is hard to imagine that the graphic sex scenes contributed artistically to the film's meaning, but a case can no doubt be made. One reviewer (Jim White) has commented that "this is not acting we see, this is activity." Ironically, despite the effort to portray a tender love story, the net effect is wholly unerotic. So what is the point ? While pornography strives to eroticize, this artistic film falls short in that arena. White makes the insightful point that film is too mechanical, intrusive, and voyeuristic a platform in comparison with literature. The film author is at a huge disadvantage, his mode of communication is literal, not literary.