Abstract
ABSTRACTThe following article looks at three recent non-fiction works—Biùtiful cauntri/Beautiful Country (Calabria, D'Ambrosio and Ruggiero, 2007), La bambina vuole prendere aria/The Baby Needs Some Fresh Air (Rossi-Prudente, 2008) and Una montagna di balle/A Mountain of Lies (Angrisano, 2009)—that depict the criminal mismanagement of both household and industrial waste in Southern Italy. Employing theoretical paradigms from anthropology, documentary studies and environmental criticism, I analyse how the films shift the terms within which garbage is understood nationally. Through their rhetorical strategies (most significantly their use, alteration or rejection of conventional voice-over narration) the films also place the spectator in various positions vis-à-vis the crisis and serve as examples of the ways in which documentary attempts to turn its spectators into activists.
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