OW"What in the World Are We Doing To Our World?"Original Title: Solutions locales pour un désordre global
Director: Coline Serreau
France | French
2010 | 113min. | Colour
Subtitles: English
Format: 35mm
All AgesMany of us think we know the basic arguments in favor of eating organic foods, but this illuminating, often disturbing film casts the matter in a broader historical and political perspective. It suggests that the alarming ways in which industrial food production, with its reliance on heavy machinery and chemical fertilizers, is destructive and harmful to our bodies and to society as a whole.
Director Coline Serreau argues that the collusion between mass agriculture and industry since World War II has constructed an agricultural system which utilizes the tools and methods of war, so that nourishing ourselves - a most basic aspect of our activity as human beings - has become instead an act of violence that we perpetrate, however unwittingly, against ourselves. As one participant remarks, “When we sit down to a meal, we say, ‘Bon appétit!’ It might be more appropriate to say, ‘Good luck!’'
Over the course of the film, we visit farms in Brazil, France, India and Ukraine, learning about various methods and models for producing food naturally, and discovering the dark side of the much-trumpeted “Green Revolution.' After a relentless examination of the evils of industrial agriculture, the film offers a lucid argument that, after all, it is ancient techniques of farming and land management which provide the sanest way forward for food production – and for the survival of our species. One subject says: “When food is governed as if it’s a commodity, people will starve and cars will run on food.' Strong words, but not science fiction. – Glen Sheppard