Scrap Odyssey2010

SCRAP ODYSSEY's title ​(​and Richard Strauss​​ theme​)​ refer to Stanley Kubrick's 2001​. B​ut this odyssey is distinctly down​-​to​-​earth. Polish documentarians Paweł Ferdek and Łukasz Gutt offer an arresting snapshot of the shifting plates of global trade by focusing on one Kyrgyz truck driver's route across the ancient Silk Road (now a conduit for scrap metal and Chinese manufacturing). The trucker stops for food, drink, repairs​ ​and conversation along the way​. I​t becomes clear that China's boom looms as large as the surrounding Tian Shan Mountains for the Kyrgyz people. With China literally absorbing the former Soviet Union's industrial past, Kyrgyzstan finds itself a kind of way station between one superpower’s ruins and another's ascendency. As much an existential road movie as a documentary, SCRAP ODYSSEY bears witness to a region and culture in the throes of transition. "It's important to reach the destination, that’s all," says our driver​. B​ut it's unclear what awaits him at the end of his long haul. - Max Goldberg