This is a non-verbal documentary about factory farming in Europe. Filmed over a period of two years by Nikolaus Geyrhalter, the steady gaze of the camera on the sterile, standardised and de-humanised world of modern day food production says a lot more than words could ever achieve.
We see the robotic cultivation, processing and distribution of all sorts of fruits and vegetables, and the bored lives of those who are engaged in the production. But most tellingly we see how animals have also been incorporated into this inhumane system, and are systematically abused.
Against this backdrop we also see the people engaged in the production, both working and eating their degraded foodstuffs. The film reminds one of Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis, but it is now out of the realm of science fiction and into the realm of everyday life.
The film necessarily puts one off meat-eating, with it’s diabolical butchery, but it also makes one question the tomatoes on one’s plate and how they got to be so round and red!
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