Movie time: Waste Land

Movie time. How I've missed you. Recently, I snuck in a late night viewing while my household slept. It was worth the missed zzz's.

The film was Waste Land, a documentary by Lucy Walker set (mostly) at Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest garbage landfill just outside of Rio de Janeiro. Visual artist, Vic Muniz, travels back to his birth country to work collaboratively with a handful of trash pickers at the landfill to create art - art from trash. I was struck by the truly collaborative process behind the art as well as by the absence of exploitation of his "outsider" subjects.

Clearly, the experience of working with Muniz was transformative for his subjects. I would venture to say that watching the film was transformative for me. Universal themes, beautiful people, time well-spent.