Behind The Beautiful Forevers Essay

It’s interesting to note that countries that are thousands of miles away from each other are connected not by similarities in culture, people or even food. No, they are connected because they face the same problems and chains that holds their people. In both the book and film, the focus or main point is poverty in developing countries. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” takes place in the slums of India, and it focuses on the “waste pickers”, who are people who gather the recyclable items from garbage and sell them back to recycling companies. One of the main characters, Abdul, is one of these pickers who for several years has been steadily increasing his family’s wealth. Most people in the slums would consider Abdul’s family to be somewhat successful

This time we move to the largest landfill in the world, Jardim Gramacho. The main character in the movie is an artist (Vik) who is no stranger to poverty because he himself had come from a background of poverty. Vik’s artwork was mainly created by taking objects related to the message or subject and manipulating them to form a picture. For this project, he decides to go to landfill in Brazil and just observes how the pickers live, and interacted with their lifestyle and environment. Vik is just moved by how alive and content the workers are with their lives. The pickers wouldn’t say they are happy but most of them are proud and thankful for their job. They are thankful that they are making some money to support themselves and their families. After taking some pictures of workers, he finds the images or characters that best tell the story of Jardim Gramacho and gives them an opportunity to create their own art. They each help each other move recyclables and materials around to form images. After making the artwork, Vik goes to England to sell the artwork and he puts it all back to the community of pickers. This experience sparks the desire to reach further in the workers who participated in the