Garbage Warrior is a documentary about Mike Reynolds, an architect who builds experimental, sustainable houses from junk – beer cans wired and meshed together to form tight little bricks, plastic bottles held together by cement and tyres full of compacted dirt and something called ‘thermal mass’. Out in the New Mexico desert he’s created a community of fellow freaks, playing Noah in the face of environmental disaster rather than God’s wrath. He’s got the flowing grey hair for it and the kind of cynical but still bright-eyed idealism you get in ageing flower children who haven’t fried their brains completely. The story of his fascinating buildings becomes a pretty typical tale of the suits versus the free spirits once the state realises he’s built without regard for planning law – it probably doesn’t help that the old hippie calls them Earthships. Thanks to clever cutting and musical choices the documentary-makers keep Reynolds’ years spent battling bureaucracy interesting. The depressing realities of politics and red-tape are made watchable, but what’s really worth seeing is when Reynolds and his crew of drop-out builders are called out to Indonesia in the wake of the tsunami to help rebuild. Their buildings made of garbage, entirely self-sufficient, able to cool themselves and collect their own water, suddenly become life-savers rather than lawsuits waiting to happen. The misfits become saviours and the story of frustration and bureaucracy becomes one of hope and triumph that’s genuinely uplifting.

****

JODY MACGREGOR

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