92 minutes / Color
Release: 2006
Copyright: 2005
In sealed rooms, as sterile as computer microprocessor factories, chicks hatch while being closely monitored. A huge hose sucks salmon out of a fjord. Metal teeth chomp up fields of sunflowers which, thanks to chemicals, have withered at just the right time. On mechanized conveyer systems, chickens are cut up and pigs are gutted in seconds, although cows take a little longer.
OUR DAILY BREAD reveals the little-known world of high-tech agriculture. In a series of visually stunning, continuously tracking, wide-screen images that seem right out of a science-fiction movie, we see the places where food is cultivated and processed: surreal landscapes optimized for agricultural machinery, clean rooms in cool industrial buildings designed for maximum efficiency, and elaborate machines that operate on a 'disassembly line' basis.
There's little space for humans here. They almost seem like flaws in this system: undersized and vulnerable, though they adapt as best they can, with chemical suits, respirators, ear protectors, and helmets. They do the jobs for which machines have not yet been invented.
Dispensing entirely with explanatory commentary or 'talking-head' interviews, OUR DAILY BREAD unfolds on the screen like a disturbing dream: an endlessly fascinating flow of images, an insistent gaze, accompanied only by the persistent industrial soundtrack—whirring, clattering, booming, slurping—of the ingenious marvels of mechanization employed by agri-business.
While this remarkable documentary will likely engender fascination, awe and even shock amongst viewers, OUR DAILY BREAD simply aims to show the industrial production of food as a reflection of our society's values: plenty of everything, made as quickly and as efficiently as modern technology permits.
"Devastating! A Must-See!" —Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
“The 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY of modern food production.” —Stuart Klawans, The Nation
“Casts a calmly unsettling spell… This is FAST FOOD NATION envisioned, KOYAANISQATSI, on a grand scale: Fast Food Planet.” —Michael Phillips, The Chicago Tribune
“An invigoratingly subtle form of political cinema.” —Richard Porton, Cinema Scope
“A rare achievement in the documentary film genre… reflexive, subtle and intelligent.” —Martha Blassnigg, Leonardo Digital Reviews
Select Accolades
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