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Michael Reynolds works on a can wall in New Mexico |
Camden cinema | Garbage Warrior | Oliver Hodge | Michael Reynolds establishes Green community in New Mexico
GARBAGE WARRIOR
Directed by Oliver Hodge
Certificate 12
SPORTING a sweaty beard and clad in a dirty jumper, we first meet architect Michael Reynolds swinging a pick axe.
We’re being shown this fella is no ordinary designer – no collarless shirt with a graphite half-pen-half-pencil popping out of its top pocket for Michael.
Instead, our hero is a mixture of Swampy, Willy Nelson and
W Heath Robinson. A maverick American architect, he has spent his career using junk to build homes “off-grid” – places with their own power, water and sewerage – and has won a 30-year battle to establish a green community in New Mexico.
His story feels like a feature-length version of Grand Designs. In 1968, Reynolds built his first home using bricks made of beer cans.
He moved on to creating a home he called the Earth Ship, which has walls made of lorry tyres with earth squashed inside them.
Eco-friendly and recycled – perfect!
But his plans to make a whole Nevada desert town of them is not welcomed by the authorities: they sued over perceived building violations, including the homes not being connected to any services, which is exactly their purpose, he would reply.
Then, tragically, Reynolds found himself a more willing test ground. When the tsunami hit Pacific-rim countries in December 2005, he headed out there to help rebuild damaged towns. It is here the real worth of Reynolds’ talents emerge.
Instead of a mid-western American hippie chasing a Utopian dream in an isolated desert, he becomes a man who gets things done.
His homes, built using rubbish, are life-saving.
Sadly, a great story does not always make a great film, and there are parts of Garbage Warrior which may make you want to go outside and burn lorry tyres instead of build with them, including some truly nauseating eco-warrior new age dialogue.
Although Garbage Warrior’s holier-than-thou tone can grate, the recent disasters in Burma and China provide a sober argument as to why Reynolds’ homes are meritable. |
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