AllMovie

Filmmaker Patrick Keiller produced, directed and edited this experimental mockumentary, the third in a series concerning the work of a non-existent character named Robinson. Narrator Vanessa Redgrave speaks as a producer who met Robinson during a conference in China, and after he unexpectedly died, she took over post-production on his final film, a meditation on social and environmental problems in England financed by an advertising agency. Over footage of pastoral scenes in the countryside, dilapidated buildings in London, abandoned campsites and evidence of environmental projects of the past (successful and otherwise), the narrator discusses the themes of Robinson's previous films, how they tie in with her study of corporate and governmental responsibility to the Earth and British society, and how it all connects with the global economic crisis of 2008. Created as part of a U.K. Arts & Humanities Research Council project on "The Future of Landscape and the Moving Image," Robinson In Ruins received its North American premiere at the 2010 New York Film Festival.