On a mission to show us things we do not normally see, Our Daily Bread is a meditative, at times darkly poetic look at industrial food production. The film eschews narration, commentary, titles and critical reflection by participants. It does not quite go so far as to say 'make up your own mind', as the narrative is constructed very deliberately by camera placement, framing, and editing. Very often, we are riding in the cockpit of the combine harvesters and crop sprayers - the film constantly reminds us that we are not standing outside, but very much part of the machine. But the film is less finger-wagging than a conversation starter. Some people will never touch another sausage again. Others will see the bland inevitability of mechanised solutions to feeding an over-populated planet. The abattoir scenes work well, conveying a strange other-worldliness, neither humanising nor demonising the lives before us, be they human or animal. The crop tending scenes and harvesting work less well. A 70-second shot of a yellow field of indeterminable plants suddenly dusted by a plane is an example of lugubrious shot flow that severely tests the patience. The film is relentless in establishing its detachment, its candour, and its anti-documentary credentials with regard to the subject, but ironically ends up proving itself somewhat smug and bourgeois in its rigidity. Nice camera-work, but a misfiring storytelling process.
Review of Our Daily Bread
