Objectified

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Design is all around us, as anyone who has ever been responsible for creating a design realizes early on. While many of us most often think about design in terms of the art we observe –- paintings, magazines, movies, home interiors -- it is present and every bit as important in the everyday things we use: toothbrushes, computers, potato peelers and the like. Gary Hustwit, the guy who gave use the fine documentary about typeface called Helvetica [review] (after the famous font), is back again with an equally wonderful example of the genre, Objectified, that turns our attention to the many objects we encounter in our daily lives and then shows us how vital good design is to how these objects work -- and how they affect us for better or worse.

Hustwit begins with an alarm clock ringing and the morning shower – and immediately we’re hooked. The pristine and gorgeous cinematography is by the versatile DP Luke Geissbuhler, whose work ranges from Borat to The Muppet Christmas Carol to Helvetica, and the movie, as you might expect, includes beaucoup interviews with talking heads. But since these heads are attached to some very clever and well-spoken designers, we get a banquet of food-for-thought, as well as a look at many of today’s most interesting and well-designed objects. After watching this film, you’ll have a renewed appreciation for the term “ergonomics.”

I grew up learning that form follows function, a premise that seems to work well with much of what is on display in the film because every object we see has a function –- often an important one in our lives. But Objectified may also make you question, perhaps healthily, many of the over-designed objects you see around you and use (or try to): say, salad servers so ornate that it’s uncomfortable to grasp the handles. Art Nouveau, it turns out, may not be the best style in which to sculpt something functional.

In this film, as you might imagine, most forms are sleek -- pared down to their minimum, their essence. While you may question whether the Apple Corporation is really the sine qua non of fine design, as one talking head posits here, you’ll find plenty else to agree with. And even the arguments the film provokes are worth having.

Objectified, a mere 75 minutes long, is the kind of movie you’ll want to share with every alert filmgoer on your list.