Giorgio Ferrero’s Beautiful Things calls its first interview Petroleum Man. He’s inside a metal shed, his back is mostly behind the camera, looking at tall shelves with almost nothing in them except for some old boots. Beautiful Things calls him Petroleum Man because he’s a solitary man pumping oil out of the early. The irony here is that the process behind things is ugly. The film looks at other men like him on the unseen sides of consumerism. Aside from Petroleum Man, there’s Cargo Man who transports things.

Then, there’s Measure Man who consumes them, and Ashes Man, who helps turn these theoretically  things into ash. Imagine them as The Avengers, people who are essential in late stage capitalism, but without the fanfare. I also write ‘theoretical’ because viewers selfdom see these things as beautiful. The only time we see them in their beautiful state is during interludes where we see Ferrero’s house full of things that may not even seem beautiful because they’re part of someone’s clutter, making those spaces ugly.

Beautiful Things does deserve credit for its different depiction of relatively apolitical colonialism. Aside from the barrenness of Petroleum Man’s surroundings, we have Cargo Man reminiscing about his time with sex workers, or the cargo heavy ship itself as big as the ocean that it’s crossing. In colonialism, there are people on both the capitol and the colonies. Beautiful Things shows more of the colonies and shows them as desolate frontiers, as if hinting at the eventual scarcity that comes with capitalism.

Those of us who have first or second hand knowledge of economic theory know something. Specifically, that an important tenet of capitalism are the renewable resources ripe for exploitation. There might be less and less of those renewable resources left. Or maybe the visuals here purposefully obfuscate those products within those boxes. It seems like those boxes are all that remains, along with empty shelves. In the case of Ashes Man, all that’s left is him. The film’s representation of the capitol through Ferrero’s house and Measure Man feel equally scant.

Beautiful Things gives as much of its frames to its solitary beings within their surroundings, but some of its pieces don’t, admittedly, fit together. The documentary gives a lot of its spotlight to the first two men, and understandably, Ferrero’s house is in the film more for the interludes. That means, however, that Ashes Man’s presence here feels more like an afterthought. And Measure Man as a consumer doesn’t fit here at all. But even with those flaws, Beautiful Things, ironically, convey beauty in a futile situation.

Watch Beautiful Things on OVID.