Wasteland.

Joanne Sibley watercolor print - She often paints the Caribbean area.

Wasteland (Almega Projects, 2010), a documentary largely conceptualized by artist Vik Muniz, is about trash and landfills in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It's interesting in many ways because of Rio's focus on general cleansing (e.g. running gangs out of the slums) as they prepare for the 2016 Olympic Games. The documentary focuses on the people who work and survive on the landfills, recycling all of that which can be recycled (as Rio has no separate recycling pick-up services), and even using the food to feed themselves (in very impressive, and non-disgusting ways, I will add).

This film sat on my Netflix queue for ages, as it seemed like something I would like (i.e. it was about trash, and my fantasy destination: landfills!), but I never got to it. Every time I considered it, I felt depressed, and found something funny to do instead.

Eventually, I watched it. It was that moment, when you've been waiting to do something for ages, but just waiting for the right moment. And it was beautiful, full of real human experience and emotion, and the deep raw-ness of working with trash, of being trash, and what that means to a person's soul. It's a beautiful film, both emotionally and aesthetically. Philosophically, it brings the hidden secret world into view, and exposes it for the truth it truly brings to the world and the human experience: those who live off the landfill are the most beautiful people you can find.

I don't know if the experience of these filmmakers could be recreated across the world in other landfill worker colonies, but I'm glad that they took the time to really see the people they researched. They made something beautiful in a dirty, ugly place. They found beauty that was already there.