Waste Land is a documentary made in 2010 about Vik Muniz and his activism through art as well as the garbage pickers that construct the art. This documentary is highly performative because of Muniz’s personal stake in the work. Having grown up poor, Muniz’s purpose in the film is not only to create art and raise awareness for the dangerous nature of garbage picking and the squalor in which some people live, but also to give back to individual people and to try to change a few lives through art.

The film itself is very beautiful visually. The idea that art can be used as a mode of social change is not a new one, but certainly it was lovely to incorporate the art into the lives of the pickers. While the film may not be overtly environmental, the fact that the subject matter is based on the largest landfill in Brazil means that the subtext is consistently environmental which makes it even more impactful than if the focus has been environmental. Rather than looking at the effect to the Earth as most environmental documentaries do, it focuses on the effect to the humans of the Earth, the way it affects their socioeconomic status and health. It is often difficult to identify with traditional environmental documentaries specifically because of that lack of human connection. Establishing a human presence as the center of the film makes it easier to connect on the environmental issues it presents.

Muniz establishes early on that his focus of the art is to create change in the lives of individual garbage pickers. However, the purpose of the documentary is more unclear. The proceeds of the art itself go to the pickers, but what about the documentary? Is it for publicity? Is it to raise awareness? Vik Muniz’s overwhelming presence in the film makes it seem to be for publicity, something that comes across as self-centered, as though Muniz has some sort of savior complex.

The interviews and stories of the garbage pickers are the most effective part of the documentary, even more so than the art. Learning the stories of the pickers, their personal struggles, is not only a powerful motivating factor for social change, but also provides important environmental commentary. The people who work amongst the garbage, collecting recyclables, know better than anyone the damaging and wasteful effects consumerism has on our planet and hearing their testimony about their work is moving. It is difficult to say what exactly Muniz’s environmental message is. Though the pickers have an obvious love and appreciation for the environment, many hate their job. In the end the landfill closes, leaving the garbage to go somewhere else, and the art made simply becomes another part of the consumerist culture many of the picker’s warn against. The environmental message of the film, when examined closely, becomes rather hypocritical. How can someone make an art piece than condemns the consumerist culture that creates landfills and fills the Earth with trash only to turn around and sell that art piece, allowing yet more people to become an active part of the consumer culture?

Despite Muniz’s best intentions, there is a moral issue with the film. Garbage picking is a difficult and dangerous line of work, but for many, it is their only way to get by. Muniz takes people from that work for several weeks to create art from that garbage. Afterwards, most of those people don’t want to go back to garbage picking. My biggest dilemma with the film is the question of, is it moral, is it right, to remove people from their work, the way they support themselves, and show them a more beautiful, easier, cultural world  knowing that they will have to return to the garbage? Of course, the pickers have a course of whether or not they want to participate, but is it right of Muniz to ask in the first place when he can give them little else than a few weeks of freedom?

Another issue I took with the film was the performative nature of it. The focus of the film seemed to be more on Muniz and less on the people he was supposedly trying to help. The film read more as a misguided attempt at a personal charity mission to make himself feel better. In the end, the work of the garbage pickers is displayed in an upscale gallery surrounded by upper class people, many of whom have never experienced and can never understand the poverty these people experience. The first image one sees upon entrance into the gallery is, in fact, a picture of Muniz’s face, essentially taking complete credit for the weeks of work these pickers did. That being said, the large print of his photograph was sold and the money given to the subject of the photo which was a beautiful work of charity. It would have been more effective if the film was used less for personal publicity and more as an actual means of change.

Waste Land is an entertaining film and on the surface seems like an effective environmental piece, but when examined closer falls short in many areas. The formal elements such as personal interviews and stories, cinematography, editing are all well- constructed and thoughtful, but the message of the film is unclear and, at times, hypocritical. It seems to condemn a consumerist culture only to promote it in the end and Muniz seems to use the documentary more for publicity than for real social activism.