SCRAP – Review by Cate Marquis
Stacey Tenenbaum’s Scrap is the kind of documentary film that invites you into its world, to look closer at something seemingly ordinary which suddenly becomes intriguing, and perhaps even a bit profound. In this case, it is the realm of metal objects whose useful lives have ended – scrap metal – but which are being re-used, restored or reborn as art.
This charming, low-key documentary starts in an untamed forest grove, but one in which old cars are being reclaimed by nature. Once a junkyard yielding spare parts, it is now the “World’s Oldest Junkyard Jungle,” run by the now-elderly grandson of the scrapyard’s original owners, where a perfusion of large trees grow all around and through rusting cars.
A sense of history and a bit of humor runs throughout this appealing documentary, as we globe-trot to Asia where an airplane junkyard has been transformed into a home for the homeless and then become a tourist attraction that helps support them. Then, we move on to visit a North Dakota sculptor whose metal-work creatures of the Plains were once old farm equipment, to a photographer in India creating affecting, artistic images of factory workers at an e-waste recycling center, to an architect in Spain using rusting old ship parts to build a church, to a British man restoring discarded old iconic red phone booths into decorative objects and a Midwestern American one restoring trolley cars to put them back in service.
Surprisingly relaxing, contemplative and deeply human, Scrap casts a spell as we watch these resourceful people give new life to old objects in creative, even affectionate ways.
