“Anthropocene: The Human Epoch” is a multidisciplinary body of work between Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier which was completed in 2018. They embarked on a journey of visual exploration across the globe to document the spaces on our planet that have been geologically changed by mankind. A cinematic piece was made, photographs were taken and a VR Simulation was created. Travelling to twenty-one countries and six of our continents to visually narrate the harm and terrifying impact that man is having on its land, This visual enquiry is open to everyone and visually communicates the epoch that scientists are arguing that we are living in, The Anthropocene.
(Description from my GCOP essay)
“Anthropocene: The Human Epoch” puts a frightening twist on the standard nature documentary. Rather than exalting the awesome beauty of landscapes or animals, it captures alarming ways in which that beauty has been disturbed.
The movie takes its cues from the research of the Anthropocene Working Group, a team of scientists who in 2016 recommended a formal declaration of the end of Earth’s Holocene epoch, which began as many as 12,000 years ago. They argued that we are now in a new geologic phase, the Anthropocene epoch — a time when humans now change the Earth more than all the planet’s natural processes combined.
The film, part of a multidisciplinary project by Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and Edward Burtynsky, hops from continent to continent to depict the scale of those disruptions, which at times have an almost science fiction quality.
The stops include Norilsk, Russia, which, thanks to the production of palladium and other metals, has acquired a reputation as the country’s most polluted city, although residents are seen celebrating its putative prosperity at a festival that traffics in slogans like “happy company day!” and “happy metallurgy day!” We visit a marble quarry in Carrara, Italy, where the camera pulls back to reveal the vastness of a rock formation in which bulldozers are rudely digging.
Lithium pools in the Atacama Desert in Chile appear so otherworldly you begin to worry that they are toxic even to look at. A vulture-filled landfill in Kenya brims with technofossils, the name given to manufactured objects like plastic that wind up in the geological record. A sea wall in China has been fortified as a bulwark against rising water levels — and those fortifications will need to continue indefinitely. The filmmakers dwell for a beat on the sight of phosphate mines before revealing their surprising location: Florida.
“Anthropocene: The Human Epoch” is being called the third in a trilogy that began with “Manufactured Landscapes” (2007), which followed Burtynsky’s photography of the effects of industrialization in China, and continued with “Watermark” (2014), about the ways that humans have manipulated natural water.
The filmmakers’ approach encompasses both the tools of a PBS informational documentary and avant-garde cinema. Alicia Vikander, who narrates, cites disturbing statistics on the impact of deforestation on air quality, and there is a montage of species that are nearly or functionally extinct. In the presence of such found surreality, though, words aren’t always necessary. The movie opens with the sight of a giant bonfire and then returns to it at the end, revealing the previously not-quite-identifiable object that was burning.
As a work of cinema, “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch” can seem a bit torn in its approach, caught between a desire to spread a message to mainstream viewers and more cryptic, artistic aims. At times, more information would be preferable; in other scenes, images speak volumes without words. But as advocacy, the movie is potent and frequently terrifying.
Sept. 24, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/movies/anthropocene-the-human-epoch-review.html
I have spent quite a bit of time over the past few weeks researching the Anthropocene and especially looking into the photographs that Burtynskys captured while making the piece of cinema. When working in a photographic mindset I sometimes overlook the power of cinema and the usefulness of its narrative inspiration. However, I think it has a home for my current line of thought when I think about my relationship with the land that I spend so much time in. In the video above Jenifer Baichwal talks about the way in which they created an empathetic connection between the imagery and the viewer. By using drones and large scale shots, the film makers are able to show the scale and size of the locations that they are documenting. The moving image switches between this and detailed shots of the small narratives that are within the human manipulated landscape that they are capturing. This is something that I think is highly effective and I most definitely feel this close connection. By using this technique, you soon realise the power, significance and size of the mass destruction of the land that is happening just to support our day to day lives.
When going forward with my body of work, I think that this is a good narrative technique to show the viewer the importance of the relationship that you have with the land. The scale shows the power of the space that you are in which I believe connects the viewer with the way in which you connect with the land that you are documenting. This is something that I have tried to convey in previous work but failed to do. I have failed to show the power that I feel within my relationship with the land. I look at the land and see it as an ominous being that is far more powerful than our comprehension, it has been here longer than us and I think the research suggests that it will outlive our time on the planet. This innate respect and unconditional love is something that I struggle to explain in every form.
However, with my growing interest in the use of film and the emotions that it can share I am beginning to think that I too might be able to convey my narrative using the medium. By filming and documenting the spaces that I am encountering I will be able to bring my viewer that bit closer to the feelings and experiences that I am having when I am exploring the landscape. Using stills to emphasize the beauty of the space that I am in with a cinematic piece that brings the viewer along my journey and experience.