An Oliver Hodge Film

When creating a mental list of controversial subjects, there is one thing I can tell you for sure that did not come to my mind, architecture. Well, it appears that a controversy is alive and well for people who want to question the status quo.

Garbage Warrior is a film about Michael Reynolds, an architect in New Mexico whose housing designs have managed to upset every code and regulation on the books. He began with the concept of thermal mass as a basis for his home designs. Where typical builders are often seeking to use as little material as possible to construct a home, Reynolds builds homes like a ship, an Earthship to be exact. His designs aim at maximum self-sufficiency and stability. In the extreme climate of the New Mexico desert these designs need no heating or cooling. The entire house IS the climate control. They produce their own electricity, maintain large freshwater reserves, process their own sewer, and as seen in the film- even grow bananas in the living room.

But when Reynolds' local government enters a new phase of planning and development, things get ugly. The enthusiasm for innovation is squashed under the weight of subdivision codes and forms in triplicate. Mike takes his fight all the way to the state capitol, in an attempt to draft a new law.

This is juxtaposed with Reynolds and his crew being invited to share their expertise with victims of the 2004 Indonesian Tsunami. A month after the disaster people were living in sheet metal boxes, without sanitation or drinking water. Instead of meeting bureaucratic resistance, here their ideas are enthusiastically embraced. Regardless of your environmental views, you can't help but see that the result of this housing would be an improved quality of life. The people in Indonesia are seen desperately seeking their drinking water from a government truck. Their lives are literally in the hands of the government. The philosophy driving Mike Reynolds is, “Own your life.”

This is a film about creativity and invention. It asks a vital question: have we arrived at the pinnacle of housing ideas? If we're not there, what is the direction of progress, where will we experiment? All of this points to a major flaw in our modern thinking. We no longer trust ourselves. We assume that government minds have the invention market cornered somehow. If law and regulation stand in the way of invention how will we ever progress?

Oliver Hodge's presentation of Reynolds is reminiscent of Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future. He's crazy, yes. But he's the good kind of crazy. The people around him are annoyed and inspired at the same time. The highlight of the film is seeing Reynolds attempting politics in the capitol. His ideas are received by the state politicians as if he were explaining Dr. Emmet Brown's flux capacitor. Photos of state officials asleep in their chairs is priceless. It would have been nice to have more footage or interviews from the beginning of Reynolds' experiments, but overall Hodge succeeds in drawing the viewer into the world of the Garbage Warrior.

Reviewed by Brian McClerren

April 22, 2009