Food, Inc.
Directed by Robert Kenner
At Film Forum
Runtime: 94 min.
A shoal of food exposés have been released in recent years—Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, King Corn.—but Robert Kenner's Food, Inc is a valuable summation of the important issues raised by its muckraking predecessors.
Food, Inc. focuses on the consolidated corporate control of the food supply and its deadly consequences. The industrial food complex has led to major health risks, like the feeding of corn to cattle instead of grass, which dramatically increases virulent E. coli bacteria in meat. Uber-powerful food corporations also exploit and intimidate farmers, who operate under brutal control akin to the exploitative debt farming used to shackle former slaves economically after the Civil War.
Authors like Omnivore writer Michael Pollan have tackled a lot of these issues, but this documentary offers a comprehensive overview and well-constructed line of reasoning, making Food, Inc worth seeing—especially for those unfamiliar with writers such as Pollan.
The film occasionally fails to give enough information and at times strays mawkishly off-track—even attempting to incite call-to-action fear. For example, in the opening sequence, the narrator makes the spooky-sounding claim that ethylene gas is used to expedite the ripening of many grocery-bought tomatoes. Ethylene gas is not fully explained, but it sounds deadly and evil, right? In actuality, many fruits—including tomatoes—naturally produce ethylene gas during their organic ripening process. Kenner can make the argument that artificial ripening is bad, but the narrator utters the insidious-sounding ethylene like a curse word and never explains it.
Food, Inc. also loses some punch when it moves from human safety to animal rights. Insofar as the maltreatment of animals threatens eater health, the topic is relevant to Kenner’s film, but he sometimes loses himself in PETA-land, empathizing with the animals just for the sake of it. One scene wistfully reveals that Perdue Farms' chickens never see any light during their entire lifetime. Why the critters should experience sunlight before we stuff them in our mouths, however, is never persuasively explained, it's just assumed that we'll empathize. Despite these flaws, the film succeeds as more than mere propaganda. Unlike the processed products it criticizes, Food, Inc. is ready for consumption.
Directed by Robert Kenner
At Film Forum
Runtime: 94 min.
A shoal of food exposés have been released in recent years—Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, King Corn.—but Robert Kenner's Food, Inc is a valuable summation of the important issues raised by its muckraking predecessors.
Food, Inc. focuses on the consolidated corporate control of the food supply and its deadly consequences. The industrial food complex has led to major health risks, like the feeding of corn to cattle instead of grass, which dramatically increases virulent E. coli bacteria in meat. Uber-powerful food corporations also exploit and intimidate farmers, who operate under brutal control akin to the exploitative debt farming used to shackle former slaves economically after the Civil War.
Authors like Omnivore writer Michael Pollan have tackled a lot of these issues, but this documentary offers a comprehensive overview and well-constructed line of reasoning, making Food, Inc worth seeing—especially for those unfamiliar with writers such as Pollan.
The film occasionally fails to give enough information and at times strays mawkishly off-track—even attempting to incite call-to-action fear. For example, in the opening sequence, the narrator makes the spooky-sounding claim that ethylene gas is used to expedite the ripening of many grocery-bought tomatoes. Ethylene gas is not fully explained, but it sounds deadly and evil, right? In actuality, many fruits—including tomatoes—naturally produce ethylene gas during their organic ripening process. Kenner can make the argument that artificial ripening is bad, but the narrator utters the insidious-sounding ethylene like a curse word and never explains it.
Food, Inc. also loses some punch when it moves from human safety to animal rights. Insofar as the maltreatment of animals threatens eater health, the topic is relevant to Kenner’s film, but he sometimes loses himself in PETA-land, empathizing with the animals just for the sake of it. One scene wistfully reveals that Perdue Farms' chickens never see any light during their entire lifetime. Why the critters should experience sunlight before we stuff them in our mouths, however, is never persuasively explained, it's just assumed that we'll empathize. Despite these flaws, the film succeeds as more than mere propaganda. Unlike the processed products it criticizes, Food, Inc. is ready for consumption.
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