In a world of globalisation and mass-market consumption, Our Daily Bread is a truly evocative documentary that everyone needs to watch and digest as we are all a part of the food process.
Allowing us to view the unseen and often unpalatable world of food production, Our Daily Bread is at once shocking, fascinating and disturbing. If ever there was a film filled with food for thought, this is it.
Out on DVD on 8 September 2008, this third film by director Nikolaus Geyrhalter is free of commentary, characters, soundtrack and storyline, allowing the viewer to gaze in wonder and awe at how the food we take for granted ends up on our plates.
This is industrial food production, plenty of everything, made quickly by a specialised few. Chicks are sorted and spun around sterile machines, pigs trotters are cut off in seconds, whole olive trees are harvested within minutes, salmon are uniformly gutted in seconds, but cows take a bit longer.
The stunning visuals which range from absorbing and lovely to horrifying speak for themselves as indictments of the industry and its cruelty to both land and animals.
People, animals, crops and machines play a supporting role in the logistics of this system which provides our society’s standard of living. Long, slow shots all beautifully framed and structured make the film hypnotic and provocative.
Our Daily Bread is a wide-screen tableau of a feast which isn’t always easy to digest - and in which we all take part. It is an invitation to explore and get to the bottom of things, to look, listen and be amazed.