Wasteland

There as many things going on in the world, that because we are in such a privilaged area, we do not always learn about. Tons of people live in less fortunate areas where they have to do horrifying work to make there area better and to make some money. In the movie Wasteland, Vik Minsk sheds some light on one of those troubled areas we may not know much about. The movie takes place in the country Brazil where the largest landfill in the world is located. Here you will of course find mound and mounds of garbage, but also you will find many people sortig trhough is trying to collect things that can be recycled. These people are former drug adicts, people in poverty, and just people of low social standing trying to make money doing a job that no one wants to do. The over all big picture of whats going on is a gross and humiliating situation, and many of the worker wish they were not working there. But, Minsk does something magical in this documentary that helps boost there spirits and make their situation seem like more that just a couple of crack heads picking up trash. What Vik Minsk does is he talks to them, takes their photo, and creates art in a place where people thought beauty could not be found. Vik Minsk interview many of the poeple who work their but one impaticular women named Isis. She opened up about how she reeks of garbage even after showering multiple times, how she does not like working with the garbage and how it is not a life anyone would want to have, and about how she fell in love with one of the garbage truck men but had her heart broken because he was married. Even though Isis smiles a great deal of the fill and acts as though she has no problem with the life she is living, this interview showed a different side of her. It showed the broken down heart broken vulnerable side that she hid because she knows complainging about her life is not going to change it. The caputuring of the landfil and the motive's of the workers, raised her spirits because she knows how hard they all work and she liked the idea of getting the message spread around the world. Another thing Vik Minsk did in this documentary was take photos of the people as they worked. The photos he took captured the true essence of what was taking place there. Nothing was embellished, nothing was set up, all of the workers there were just being shown doing their job that they do everyday as members of the landfil's pick up team. The most major and brilliant thing Minsk did was through his art work. Minsk created art, with the garbage that was through the land fill. The would make a huge portrait on the ground and it would look like a whole lot of nothing, but then he would go into the sky on a helecopter and he would take photos of the art from a larger scale view. This movie was very eye opening and very informative on the problem occuring over in Brazil, Minsk did a great job of grabbing the message he wanted us to take from it and showing it through he art.