Our Daily Bread (Unser täglich Brot)

I cannot recall any recent viewed documentary that would be as bewitching as what Nikolaus Geyrhalter delivered with his documentary on the food industry around Europe. Setting itself apart from thousands of other documentaries handling the same problem, Our Daily Bread dives with the audience into a passive and well planed documentation of the development of food in the developed countries around Europe. And it does without muttering a single word.

Geyhalter chooses a more daring method to deliver the message, alienating his work from the harsh data throwing Discovery Channel has us used to. And it does with the aid of a magnificent photography and the plain and sterile sounds of the industry of food. The director even introduces us to some of the people involved in the process, the hands that still in a way continue to work on the industry, and he does this not by interviewing them, but by letting us stare into their work and their food, what do they eat, because they have to eat right? Which rises the question, what do one eats when one's cutting cows and breeding chickens by the millions? What do they think, we do not know, but we can see at all and all they are still humans inside this big machine.

It's a daring project, but I would dare to say that it works perfectly as it does leaves it entirely to the audience to process what is happening in front of them, it allows us to think patiently on how it all works and where do our food come from, without pointing suspects or delivering conclusions. It's just there, laying on the plate, ready for us to digest it.