78
Metascore
20 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen Holden"We are not pickers of garbage; we are pickers of recyclable materials," Tião, an impoverished Brazilian catadore, or trash picker, declares to a talk-show host in Lucy Walker's inspiring documentary Waste Land.
- 88Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaPhiladelphia InquirerSteven ReaIt's not a very good title, Waste Land - this isn't a bleak film, at all - but just about everything else in Lucy Walker's documentary works, and illuminates.
- 83The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasThough narrower in scope and lacking the first-person angle, Waste Land resembles Agnès Varda's great 2000 documentary "The Gleaners & I," particularly in its awe of tough, creative, hard-working people who live on the margins.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeThe Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeOverall, though, the project brings enough good into this rough corner of the world that viewers can walk out with honest cause to be hopeful for its inhabitants.
- 80VarietyVarietyLucy Walker's Waste Land takes his (Vik Muniz) project one step deeper by actually getting to know Muniz's models, which brings a compelling human-interest dimension to the sort of art documentary otherwise better suited for TV.
- 80Village VoiceVillage VoiceA fascinating look at the complex intersections of art and charity, reality and perception.
- 75Washington PostWashington PostSpend some time there, thanks to the documentary Waste Land, and you start to get the sense that, amid the trash, something really is blooming.
- 75St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsSt. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsWhile we await the definitive documentary about the glut of garbage, Waste Land reduces this global catastrophe to touchingly human scale.
- 75Boston GlobeWesley MorrisBoston GlobeWesley MorrisWaste Land is just what the film's website says it is: "stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the alchemy of the human spirit."
- 60Time OutJoshua RothkopfTime OutJoshua RothkopfIt probably would have helped if Walker (who credits two other codirectors) had chosen just one of those avenues for deeper study; her doc has a vertiginous way of feeling arty and ephemeral at one moment, humane and maybe too earthbound the next.