Vik Muniz, a well-regarded Brazilian artist living in New York, is a socially conscious individual, and his photography-based œuvre celebrates the forgotten poor of Central and South America, with much of the profits being returned to the impoverished subjects of his artistry. For this documentary, filmmaker Lucy Walker accompanied Muniz on his most ambitious undertaking: a photographic tribute to the thousands who pick through the mountainous trash at Rio de Janeiro’s central landfill, digging in the rubble for recycling. Walker combines stirring studies of many of the Jardim Gramacho workers with a documenting of Muniz’s project — large-scale, dignified portraits framed by rephotographed, recyclable garbage. So here’s the question: are the indigent better off for this transformational experience, or does it just make returning to their grueling, stinking job that much more bitter? One worker’s answer: “I’m a person now — before, I was a little mule.”
