Garbage Warrior

Garbage Warrior
Michael Reynolds standing on a Earthship construction area in Taos, New Mexico
Directed byOliver Hodge
Produced byRachel Wexler
StarringMike Reynolds
Release date
  • April 2007 (2007-04) (Hotdocs Film Festival)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1.5 million

Garbage Warrior is a 2007 American documentary film about architect Mike Reynolds, inventor of the Earthship style of building, directed by Oliver Hodge.

Plot

Oliver Hodge follows Reynolds in his development of the Earthship style of building and his struggle with the laws of Taos, New Mexico, the location of his experimental Earthship community, in order to be allowed to build homes that do not match the structures of local building codes.

The film concludes with a postscript showing Reynolds and his team of builders travelling to the Andaman Islands in the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami to assist the locals with disaster recovery and teaching them how to construct extremely low-cost earthships.

Production

In an interview with Dazed, director Oliver Hodge described meeting Reynolds for the first time in Brighton and revealed that nearly a third of the documentary had been shot before he was able to secure funding.

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 83% based on 6 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. Following its release, the film was nominated for three awards at the British Independent Film Awards: Best British Documentary, Achievement in Production, and the Douglas Hickox Award. It also won the people's choice award for most popular international nonfiction film at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Anthony Quinn, writing for The Independent, called the film "properly affectionate as well as being instructive" and called Reynolds "wholly cherishable." Mike McCahill, writing for The Telegraph, characterized the film as a "sometimes fuzzy-headed but good-spirited portrait of a single-minded visionary." Steve Rose gave the film three out of five stars in The Guardian, writing that he thought "the focus [was] a little narrow, but Reynolds is good company."

Eddie Cockrell, writing for Variety, and Cosmo Landesman, writing for The Sunday Times, both opined that green fans would enjoy the film although Landesman's review more temperately assessed Garbage Warrior as having "all the criticial insight of a corporate video." Philip French, writing for The Observer, called it a "fascinating story" but questioned whether relaxed architectural standards were the correct course of action in light of the then-recent 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

References

  1. ↑ "Oliver Hodge's New Documentary Garbage Warrior". Dazed. December 22, 2007. Retrieved November 1, 2026.
  2. ↑ "Garbage Warrior". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 31, 2026.
  3. ↑ "Garbage Warrior". BIFF. October 11, 2007. Retrieved November 1, 2026.
  4. ↑ Eisner, Ken (February 20, 2008). "Garbage Warrior". The Georgia Straight. Retrieved November 1, 2026.
  5. ↑ Quinn, Anthony (May 22, 2008). "Garbage Warrior". The Independent. Retrieved November 1, 2026.
  6. ↑ McCahill, Mike (May 23, 2008). "Film reviews: Garbage Warrior, Rebellion: the Litvinenko Case, Shotgun Stories and more". The Telegraph. Retrieved November 1, 2026.
  7. ↑ Rose, Steve (May 23, 2008). "Garbage Warrior". The Guardian. Retrieved November 1, 2026.
  8. ↑ Cockrell, Eddie (July 11, 2007). "Garbage Warrior". Variety. Retrieved November 1, 2026.
  9. ↑ Landesman, Cosmo (May 25, 2008). "Garbage Warrior the Sunday Times review". The Sunday Times. Retrieved November 1, 2026.
  10. ↑ French, Philip (May 24, 2008). "Garbage Warrior". The Observer. Retrieved November 1, 2026.

Further reading

"Garbage Warrior". HESO Magazine. October 7, 2009. Archived from the original on October 22, 2017. Retrieved September 7, 2011.