Waste Land (2010)

In the documentary "Waste Land", Vik Muniz visits Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill in Brazil, and works with the "pickers" who collect recyclables there to create portraits made of waste. Roger Ebert said in his review of the movie, "Perhaps [Director Lucy] Walker intended to make the film about Muniz. If so, her subject led her to a better one; as he returns to Rio to photograph pickers for a series of portraits, she begins to focus on their lives." This holds very much true, as Muniz becomes our window into the world of the poor that work all day at the landfill. The pickers live hard lives; the work is agonizing and they've all been struck by misfortune and tragedy in some way. However, they also joke, laugh together, and have formed a community that  is lively and energetic despite their miserable condition. One of the workers even collects abandoned books and hopes to form a public library, and Tiao, the organizer of the community, shows an impressive knowledge and understanding of the philosophers whose books he found in the landfill and decided to hold onto. When talking about his art, Muniz discusses how a picture looks different depending on how close you are from it. Up close, you see the materials themselves, but when you step away it stops being material and becomes a broader picture. In this sense, his journey seeks to "zoom in" on the landfill and look at the human element that can't be seen from the distance. The film aims to break down barriers of class and show that the poor are multi-faceted, hard-working, decent people who were just unlucky enough to get stuck in a bad situation. Muniz's portraits give them hope and show them that they have something to be proud of in their life, and they aren't lesser people for their struggles.

The Red Balloon (1956)

"The Red Balloon" is a 1956 film that shows the city of Paris from the perspective of a small child with a red balloon that magically comes to life. The first thing I immediately noticed while watching this film was how much the balloon stood out from the rest of the world shown in the movie. Paris is shown in very muted tones of brown, grey, and white, making the bright red balloon immediately pop out in any given shot. The fact that the balloon stands out so much causes trouble for the boy; he isn't allowed to take it onto the public bus, is scolded by the school principle and a guard at church, and is chased by older kids who want to pop the balloon. It makes you think about how frightening the city can be for a child who is walking alone. The buildings look enormous, the streets mazelike, the alleyways claustrophobic. Paris is made to look like a huge labyrinth, and the boy walks to and from school every day on his own in this labyrinth. It's hard not to wonder why his mother is absent for so much of the film, filling no other role on-screen other than meeting him at home at the end of the day and taking him to church. Instead, we see the boy getting help from random strangers, who let him walk under their umbrella or hold the balloon for him while he's in class. It's an interesting look at what the world is like to a lonely child.

In the 2001 film “Amelie”, viewers are invited to the dreamy city of France as it is seen by an introverted young woman named Amelie, which the film takes its name from. Amelie’s childlike, romantic view of the city is conveyed through the movie’s use of color. All of France is shown in varying shades of oranges and greens, giving it a vibrant and beautiful look that immediately pops out. Since orange and green are contrasting colors, the filmmakers take advantage of this palette to also draw the eye towards certain innocuous details in the background, such as a dress or a pattern on a wall, bringing to life the city and the people who live within it through these details. Sometimes the color scheme is broken with a bright blue that immediately stands out. This seems to signify important objects, like a plastic bag that one character is constantly carrying that immediately identifies it, but watching the film it’s hard to to tell why some of these objects were coded blue, such as a car in the background of one shot.

The death of Princess Diana sparks in Amelie a desire to help all of those around her, as she fantasizes about being as beloved as Diana was. Amelie is an imaginative person, and her fantasies come to life as visual metaphors showing us her state of mind, such as one point in the film when she turns into a puddle of water and splashes to the ground out of disappointment. Her shyness makes her feel like an outsider, and she observes the lives of the people around her from the outside looking in. With the help of the film’s humorous narration, we get to see how every person Amelie meets has their own fixations, irrational fears, and unfulfilled desires. The city of France is filled with people who are dreamers but are holding themselves back from happiness. Through Amelie’s constant covert intervention in other’s lives, we see how dreams give us direction in life and bring us together, as Amelie is brought together with a man who shares her bizarre sense of wonder and imagination. However, the film also teaches us that dreams should not remain in our heads. Doubt and anxiety constantly holds us back, and they can become a prison for someone unless action is taken. Many different plotlines involving different people weave in and out of focus throughout the film, all contributing in unexpected ways to Amelie taking that step out of her own prison. The lesson the film teaches is that the people around us share more in common with us than not, and are all connected in small but significant ways; there is no reason to be afraid of each other.