Trashed (2012)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Yesterday, i watched this movie in the International Documentary Film Festival at Erasms Huis Jakarta. First thing i want to say is 'Shocking'. Candida Brady provided undebatable facts how the waste effect entire world and human being. Eventough this movie is documentary, which contain lots of academic analysis about waste and its effect, but the present of Jeremy Iron give the taste of humor too in some parts. It gave the refreshment after all analysis which make your forehead crinkled . I think the message of the film easily embraced by the deliberation of the real facts. I wonder, how long this film making took time as it covers almost all parts of world, from east to west, from south to north. Just Bravo!

Yes, the movie seems mildly tedious and dragging at some points. But tell me, when you are in despair, trying to explain your kid the 100th time that it is NOT the best idea to poke the electricity plug hole with metal pins, isn't that tedious ... ? Still you do it. And you deserve the moral appreciation when you do it consequently. For me -- and you don't have to agree, of course -- the overwhelming moral message and values of this movie clearly break even with the small flaws that might otherwise put some critics off.Jeremy Irons not only narrated and starred this film, but he has been its producer as well. It is obvious from the start that he fully adopted the main "role", i.e. he bites the bullet and doggedly guides us through a maze of ignorance, complacency, cynicism, incompetence, corruption and perhaps even malevolence that resulted in a situation when mankind's mere survival is in danger due to such trivial items like plastic bags or PET bottles. He does the job, despite it means looking sad, shocked, in disbelief, or utterly disturbed most of the time. His genius sometimes shines through the polluted fog though, e.g. when he swears like a hailstorm because of some marking pegs lost by him during an environmental field project or when he politely (and mischievously) encourages a female security officer to perform a thorough personal search during a facility visit.The movie revolves around trash that we produce unnecessarily and dump irresponsibly. This is a simple and often abused subject, but the theme re-captures your attention when you learn that a zoologist has to handle sea predator carcasses as hazardous waste due to extremely high toxic levels that accumulated from lower life forms over time -- and this is what happens to us humans as well. Yes, there is a link between plastic bags, PET bottles and dropping fertility rate of young couples. We can literally disappear in 4-5 generations. These messages are mostly well documented and just moderately "populist" -- as much as the education level of the '"average citizen" requires.Another boon for the movie is that it goes beyond pointing out problems and shows amazingly positive best practices, like San Francisco recycling roughly three quarters of its full waste quantity, generating thousands of jobs, recuperating valuable resources and most importantly, giving hope to us whining "environmentally conscious" geeks that is CAN be done properly and somewhere it IS already done better.Music has been composed and performed by Vangelis -- another magnificent fellow dinosaur who does not deserve going extinct.All in all, I would certainly recommend watching this movie, and I thank the authors for making it -- which is the least I should do to someone who made efforts to save our lives.

An eye opening and grimly compelling documentary on waste with an inspired choice of guide in Jeremy Irons. This film will make you seriously consider your lifestyle and dietary choice by radically changing your attitude to waste. The film fully documents the alternatives to landfill and incineration, as well as shocking you into wondering why the alternatives haven't been fully explored or implemented. The films contains a great deal of information and statistics, making it very educational and informative and a film everyone should watch. I sincerely recommend Trashed-it's a real eye-opener! If you think you're protected by environmental legislation, think again...

I saw this at the Cork Film Festival this weekend. Unfortunately the director couldn't make it due to family illness.Overall I felt the message was a bit muddled at times - particularly when Jeremy Irons visits the orphanages in Vietnam - and it dragged in parts. They spend an awful lot of time interviewing people involved in various incinerators around the world but the message is always the same so after a while it gets a bit boring. When they focus on the sea and the amount of plastic in it again they get different people to say the same thing which again gets a little irritating. Probably the most glaring example of this is the very beginning when it focuses on the trash mountain in Lebanon that is leaking into the sea. It alternates between long shots of the mountain, to Jeremy sitting on a trash covered beach looking pensive, then back to the mountain, then Jeremy.... I felt like standing up and going "OK I GET IT!! LET'S MOVE ON!!" Having said that, Jeremy was a great choice of protagonist as he is both engaging and humane in terms of those that he encounters, and quite funny at times too. It ends on an optimistic note which is important for these kinds of documentaries as most of the content is fairly depressing. But I feel they could easily shaved at least 20 minutes off the running time without in any way affecting the narrative.