Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Thought provoking and unsettling documentary, which profiles Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky as he travels to China to explore the profound environmental impact of that country's industrial revolution.I think I would classify this as "horror" actually, it's very disturbing and makes me wonder why I bother with my little bit of recycling with the state of things in China.Not much of a "profile" on the artist, he's just there taking pictures and doing the odd voice over. Came across a bit long winded and dry in places too, and oddly filmed in black and white in sections which I found distracting.The ship breakers scene in Bangladesh stands out as does the brick by brick (by hand) levelling of entire cities, in order to make way for shipping lanes and the Three Gorges Dam. That was pretty horrifying due to the scale involved. I have seen other (better) documentaries on these subjects and as I said this really doesn't profile the artist at all. 06.13

Anything that exposes photographer Edward Burtynsky's socially important and beautiful work to more people is worthwhile. That said, for me the documentary itself, while very interesting and well made, simply can not compete with the enormous power of Burtynsky's own images. Indeed the best moments in the film are when we see the photos themselves. While some of what we see of the photographer"s process is interesting, and there is some provocative gentle implied questioning of the distance and lack of humanity in Burtynsky"s photographs, I did not learn much more about the man and his work then when I first happened upon his seeing his photos at a gallery, and then bought several books of his images.A solid documentary, but not an amazing one. On the other hand, the extras, particularly the lengthy photo gallery where Brutynsky talks in detail about many of his great images from the film is far more powerful and interesting, and it's absolutely worth getting the DVD for that feature.

I had heard this film was a study of a landscape photographer's art by presenting the beauty in man's deconstructing the natural landscape. It certainly showed the laborious activities to find locations, setup shots, and capture stark images whose final destinations were art studios worldwide. Put together in moving pictures it is truly a horror show.This film oozes by you supplanting the shock of ghastly images with gentle waves of a wonderful industrial soundtrack that guides you like on slow moving river. Each sequence stands on its own, but in combination you get deeper and deeper into the feeling of overwhelming inevitability. There are few words, this allowing the grandeur in what is shown to preach in its own way. An awful, massive factory filled with human automata who live in hopelessly lifeless dormitories. Individuals dying early while rummaging for recyclable scraps in mountains of our E-waste. The birthing of gigantic ships and their destruction by hand in giant graveyards. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam, the largest industrial project in human history and likely for all time. The time lapse as a city dies and is simultaneously reborn into a replica of modernity that purposefully destroys all relics of the culture that was.The most terrifying image for me was a dam engineer explaining that the most important function of the dam was flood control. The shot shifts to the orchard behind the spokesperson where you witness the level of the last flood by the toxic water having eaten the bark from the trees, demonstrating that nothing but the most hideous vermin could be living in the waters.The obvious not being stated is far more powerful than your normal preachy Save the Earth documentaries. The artist Edward Burtynsky explains the method wonderfully. 'By not saying what you should see … many people today sit in an uncomfortable spot where you don't necessarily want to give up what we have but we realize what we're doing is creating problems that run deep. It is not a simple right or wrong. It needs a whole new way of thinking'. The subtlety of this descends into an either/or proposition, but the film images scream that the decision has very much been made in favor of the dark side.Though never stated directly in any way, as the waves of what you witness wash away from your awareness and you contemplate, there is only one conclusion possible … we are doomed. The progress of mankind that is inexorable from our natures leaves behind carnage that this artist finds terrifying beauty in. What he is actually capturing are the tracks of we the lemmings rushing unconsciously toward our own demise. Unlike most films with environmental themes, this one ends with no call to arms. It argues basically what's the point, but makes certain you place the blame properly on all of us equally.

The documentary opens with a pan inside a Chinese factory that seems to go on for hours and hours. The enormity of the factory is unbelievable. It is packed with young Chinese people all in bright yellow uniforms.Later you see swarms of these yellow-uniformed young people forced to line up in rows like school children, where they are chastised for insufficient production. It is like an enormous prison or an ant hill. You wonder, what happens to these people when they hit 25. The movie does not answer.There are many other scenes of Chinese industry, from container docks, shipyards, mines, and a coal mine far as the eye can see past mists on the horizon.There is almost no narration. What little there is is often in Chinese with subtitles. And the cameraman tries to find an artistic beauty in the piles of industrial waste.Another scene that stuck in my mind was the manual processing of North America's e-waste. Every computer is smashed into components, every little pin on every chip pulled off one by one and all the metals sorted, all by hand in filthy conditions, surrounded in lead, cadmium, mercury and other dangerous heavy metals that have so contaminated the ground water it is poisonous.The movie offers no political or environmental commentary but to me China is clearly on the wrong track. They are building a new coal-fired plant each week. They are trying to convert from 90% rural to 70% urban with frantic building of high rises. It is as if they have plugged their ears to the coming realities -- peak oil and global climate change.Instead they need to move food production and consumption closer together. They need buildings that don't require energy -- highly insulated, no more than 7 stories high so people can climb stairs rather than rely on elevators.The movie also showed an old oil tanker being taken apart by hand in Bangladesh. Children and teens swim in the crude oil sludge to collect the dregs. Nobody lives past 30 in this occupation.The movie spells out no explicit message, but the implicit one is that our life style depends on an almost prison-like culture in the third world and scarring of the earth on a stupendous scale.Much of the sound track reminds me of some rhythmic squeaky mechanical device that needs oil. It drives you almost insane. I imagine many people will walk out of this movie because of it. I think the director is trying to condition you to find the images repulsive. She overdoes it.The experience is much like being a child. You see all manner of strange machines and activities, almost nothing explained. It overwhelms with awe and dread.I think this movie would be best viewed on DVD, where you can turn down the sound, and the images will not be so overwhelmingly depressing.