Food, Inc. (2009)

FOOD, INC. has the highest profile of the five films nominated for this year's Best Documentary Feature Oscar, thanks, in large part, to Oprah Winfrey, who recently used her show as a platform for promoting the movie. "Everyone in America needs to see this movie" was the gist of her message. And truthfully, I can't say that I disagree. It is amazing what we don't know about where our food is coming from.

But here's a statement I have to make that might make you think differently of me, yet I'll go ahead and say it. Should we care? Because FOOD, INC. does a fantastic job of illustrating a frustrating problem, but does little to provide concrete steps for change. The film is structured like an underdeveloped high school Oratory/persuasive speech. It is long on problems and, in the final minutes, takes a "write your congressmen and vote with your wallet" type approach to the solution.

My eyes were opened by watching FOOD, INC. in the same way that they were opened by watching "The Cove" or "Supersize Me," the latter of which has a noticeable stylistic influence (if not a tone influence) over this film. I would argue that, from a pure filmmaking standpoint, FOOD, INC. is nothing more than a slick example of the modern assembly line-style of documentary filmmaking. There are no clever conventions employed, no unexpected interviews. These documentaries look like they were edited with iMovie and focus more on the message than the means. Maybe that's not such a bad thing. It's a technique of simplistic clarity that won Oscars for movies like "An Inconvenient Truth."

My preference, however, is toward documentary films that take gambles with the medium of film itself. I could have read the contents of FOOD, INC. in a book; I didn't have to see it on the screen. But the recreations of Philippe Petit's World Trade Center tightrope walk in "Man on Wire" or the jaw-dropping home video footage of a family in turmoil in "Capturing the Friedmans"...or the brilliant parallel editing of raw audio and video footage of the original production of "A Chorus Line" with new footage of the revival's audition process in the criminally not-nominated "Every Little Step"... those are far more satisfying film viewing experiences, and just as informative.

The first hour of FOOD, INC. is devoted mostly to explaining how meat is processed, spending time (with graphic details) on chicken, pork and beef. Some viewers might be shocked and saddened by the treatment of the animals. They are corn-fed to be oversized and become too fat to walk. They stand in their own waste. They are dropped, while alive, down chutes to be killed, or kicked and whipped into crates to be loaded on trucks to be killed. Are the animals mistreated? Yes. And you can hate me if you want to for not caring a whole lot about that, except for the standing in their own waste part. Because, and I'm sorry, that's the only thing out of those injustices that will really affect me.

For an hour, authors and food activists Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) guide audiences through a frustrating vortex of injustices and unfathomable conditions. But the movie never gets to the part where the audience feels like anything can be done about it. In its final half-hour, the part I found most engaging and enraging, we are presented with a case study of one company (Monsanto) who essentially owns the majority of the nation's soybean seeds because, as we learn, if you've genetically altered something that exists naturally in nature, you can then patent and own it. So yeah...a company owns soybeans. And we watch as Monsanto employees, like secret shoppers, travel around to farms and expose farmers who clean their own seeds for replanting instead of using the Monsanto seeds that resist the effects of chemical pesticides. These farmers are taken to court, forced to rat out all of their friends, and then must settle either before trial or quickly into it for hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid the millions they don't have to sustain litigation. And then the farmers are broke, finished. I was livid.

Indeed, the Monsanto case was deserving of its own film, and as a viewer, I felt a lot more sympathy for the American farmer than I ever do for the mistreatment of the poor chickens in dark, crowded pens. Those chickens are being bred to be dead. These farmers are working to live. Something is wrong with our sympathies if we miss the pecking order here, pun intended.

In many other moments of FOOD, INC., interesting arguments are made but not carefully or fully explored. Farmers debate whether cutting deals with Wal-Mart is morally wrong, because companies like Wal-Mart are the purveyors of the existing climate that has meat being produced in such bulk and so quickly by so few companies. The film shows Wal-Mart earning its bonus points for carrying some organic products, and it's refreshing to see the often-bashed company participating in the film when every other single company brought to task in the film refused to be interviewed. But when we see footage of Stonyfield's yogurt operation, it doesn't look much different than any other plant. It is equally mechanically-driven and assembly line-like in function. So what makes it better? Is organic a genuine improvement, or is that word a label that makes us think it's better? Who can we even trust? The film never says.

If FOOD, INC. had the guts it proposes to have, it would have scrolled a list at the end of the film of companies that we can trust and support. Director Robert Kenner reveals the names of the guilty with zeal but inexplicably prevents us from being led down the path to righteousness. Say I'm ready to spend more on my meat if it's going to be from cows that eat grass and are treated humanely (before they are butchered). What store do I go to for that? What label do I look for? FOOD, INC. quickly scrolls tips onscreen at the end like "buy foods when they are in season," "buy from local farmers" and "ask your school district to provide healthy lunches."

LIP SERVICE!

What I learned from watching FOOD, INC. -- and don't get me wrong...I'm grateful for learning it -- is that the problem the movie uncovers is a governmental problem, not an agricultural industry problem. The movie claims that farmers will produce whatever the people want, but people don't even know what their options are. And after you see a scene showing a court decision to allow a company to withhold identifying cloned animal meat as such on its labels for fear of freaking out consumers (are you kidding me??), you'll wrap up your viewing with the disgusting feeling that no label you'll ever read will be truthful and accurate. Maybe we can only eat what we want because we'll die anyway.

I want to eat healthier products. I want to eat food that truly nourishes my body. I want my money to go to the livelihood of the American farmer, the true victim in all of this (because consumers can choose not to eat things, but these farmers are screwed). But I still don't really know how. FOOD, INC. is a persuasive speech with a weak solutions section. What little advice it offers at the end is vague, dreamy and, ultimately, depressing. We are presented with a litany of misfortune, told not to buy the offending products after being told that pretty much every product in the store qualifies as one, and then given the weak hope that the industry can see the kind of change that was brought to the tobacco industry. I am reminded that THAT struggle took about 50 years, so I expect I'll be dead before the food industry will improve at a similar rate.

As I sit here with a plate of antibiotically-enhanced scrambled eggs, a piece of preservative-filled toast and cup of fictitiously-labeled Columbian coffee with chemically-processed cream, I've come to the conclusion that FOOD, INC. was the most depressing film I've seen all year.

2.0 out of 4