Where Do We Go From Here? (Waste Land)

Personally, I have seen this documentary more than once and the second time was much better. I feel as if knowing what would happen next made me analyze what was happening and what the people were saying better than the first time around when I was simply awe stricken. The biggest argument or conflict that was contained within this document was that many of the pickers started to feel as though they never wanted to go back to the garbage.

In the beginning of the film, whenever Vik and the camera crew first arrived at the dump in Rio, many if not all of the pickers looked at them as if they intruders. The response from the pickers on them being there was that Vik and the crew were there to only look down and them and feel pity. This simple idea as well as the pride that each one of them displayed for their work could have made it so that this documentary had a very different outcome. That of course, as many audiences since the premier of the film knows, is not the case. Over just a brief amount of time, Vik gained the approval of the pickers and even sparked friendships. This then gave many of the pickers trust in Vik and allowed them to see that not all people outside of the dump look down on their work but rather admire what they do. This connection that was made between Vik and the pickers is what, I believe, made many of them eager to work with Vik and help to produce his art. This then took the pickers away from the garbage and gave them a different perspective on the work they did.

Rather then sifting through the trash, filth, and aroma for hours on end, they were placed in a clean studio were they made art and felt as thought they were apart of something bigger. The moment when Vik said the them that many people pay to look at art for hours, they step back from the art and see one thing, but when they stand close the bigger picture fades away and the see only the material. This is exactly what happened in the minds of many of the pickers who were involved in Vik's work. At first, they were in the garbage looked for a specific set on materials that could collect then send off to only find it back in the same dumb in a different from. Then, Vik took them out of the garbage and gave them a place to view their workplace from a different vantage point, which was the studio were they work. At they this moment, the moment that Vik spoke of, the moment when someone takes a step back only to see the larger picture, did they realize that they did not want to be in the garbage anymore. In a sense, at the beginning the pickers were the artists working among the material and were working towards something that was a bigger picture. Then, Vik gave them an opportunity to see the material come together into a picture that was not what they had envisioned in the beginning of their work, instead they saw the garbage the way other people do, the people they criticized in the beginning, the people whom on which they thought Vik was apart of.