Food safety, animal welfare, environmental toll, growing
rates of obesity and diabetes, corporate thuggery—the drubbing of
arguments in favor of being inquisitive when it comes to the origin of
your food can seem thunderous in liberal enclaves like Portland.
Indeed, the content of Food, Inc.—by far the most
impressive in a rash of documentaries addressing food industry
corruption in America—brings little new information to light for
readers of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, etc.
Regardless, director Robert Kenner’s film may be the most compelling
synthesis of all the evidence that’s been brought against the system to
date.
If you could convince a skeptic to endure just one investigation of
the topic, Food, Inc. would be the most effective and efficient
choice, by far—more so even than the revered tomes of Pollan and
Eric Schlosser, on whose work and testimony much of the film is based.
Film’s ability to put a face on not only the animals our society
consumes, but also on the oppressed farmers, poverty-stricken factory
workers, and 13-year-old diabetics lends a powerful, memorable visual
heft.
Food, Inc. is being handled by Participant Media, the company
that helped propel An Inconvenient Truth into prominence, and
the company’s purposeful creation of social action campaigns around it
offers a constructive outlet for the despair and outrage Kenner so
effectively arouses. Likewise, the hearty, passionate organic meat
farmer-icon Joel Salatin onscreen is a far more unforgetable and
inspiring figure of alternative feasibility than on the page.
In interviews, Kenner is borderline apologetic for the degree to
which his final film took on a sinister tone. But the utter refusal of
corporate representatives to defend their position, coupled with
documented actions taken to prevent and retaliate against scrutiny and
criticism, leaves little other interpretation. Using the fight against
big tobacco as a model, Food, Inc. has the fortune of precedent
to point to as a light at the end of a—albeit long and deeply
entrenched—tunnel.