Matter Out of Place

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Waste on the shores, waste on the mountains. On ocean floors and deep down in the earth. The term “matter out of place” refers to objects in a place they originally do not belong to. And there are many such objects in the places Nikolaus Geyrhalter visits for this film.

In his unique imagery consisting of minutely composed pictures, the director traces immense amounts of waste across our planet. He travels from the mountain tops of Switzerland to the coasts of Greece and Albania, into an Austrian refuse incinerator and then to Nepal and the Maldives, and finally to the deserts of Nevada.

MATTER OUT OF PLACE is about human-made refuse, which is surrounding us all the time everywhere. On his journey, Geyrhalter illustrates the sheer endless struggle of people to gain control over the vast amounts of waste that we produce every single day. Collecting, shredding, burning, burying – a Sisyphean task, which ostensibly solves the global problem of rubbish that is stealthily growing.

“A visually gorgeous, even pristine, movie about, well, garbage. ... But this is no navel-gazing exercise in aestheticizing detritus or finding beauty in ugly places. Rather, Geyrhalter’s keen, rigorous tableaux provoke us to think about the massive global industry required to deal with the rubbish we so casually generate in our everyday culture of disposability.” —The New York Times

“Mesmerizing and strangely beautiful.” —Variety

“Matter Out Of Place is a typically sober, observational and engrossing work of ecological-anthropological documentary from Austrian maestro Nikolaus Geyrhalter. Here is a director quite easy to take for granted, but who is painstakingly assembling an impressive cinematic corpus, intelligently engaged with some of the most pressing issues of our times.” —Screen Daily

“Hypnotic, perfect compositions.” —The Film Verdict

“A transfixing as well as a disturbing documentary on our trash problem. We are living in the dawn of Anthropocene and Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s wide-ranging views of the garbage-filled landscape add to the many resounding alarm bells for humanity.” —High on Films

“Exposes the squalid world of refuse in a way that is both horrifying and compelling. Artfully framed and (delightfully) without dialogue or explanation Geyrhalter lets his startling pictures tell a grim story.” —Filmuforia

“This beautifully made film presents a multi-layered, piercingly intelligent account of waste as a formidable symbol of development and destruction caused by humankind.” —International Cinephile Society

“This year's most riveting film about garbage.” —Global Comment

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Main credits

Geyrhalter, Nikolaus (film director)
Geyrhalter, Nikolaus (director of photography)

Other credits

Editor, Samira Ghahremani.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

; "Matter Out of Place"; Icarus Films; documentary; doc; garbage; waste; agriculture; biology; science; technology; environment; ecology; food; ; "Matter Out of Place"; Icarus Films