Uh-oh. Looks like that “come on and take a free market ride” mantra may be losing some momentum. International monetary systems are nearing collapse. That nasty inflation word is being reintroduced into our vocabulary. Fear seems to be the new buzzword for 2008. We can’t take anything for granted. 

Yet what about food? That’s safe, isn’t it?

We Feed the World, by Austrian filmmaker Erwin Wagenhoefer, was a surprising and deserving documentary success on the international film festival circuit in 2005 that unfortunately bypassed Edmonton screens. The film follows the food chain literally from the bottom up, in the process instructing an increasingly ill-informed majority on exactly how food is grown, processed, distributed, and marketed to an unsuspecting world. What starts as a modest, straightforward documentary soon evolves into a sinister and despairing journey toward the root of evil (not to mention financial and moral profit). Unsurprisingly, they are intertwined and readily available at your local big-box megastore.

Wagenhoefer makes a convincing case that we humans are sowing the seeds of our own destruction through the commoditization of food and our utter lack of reverence for what we eat. His film eschews flash and hype and focuses instead on details and images of what goes into what we buy, juxtaposing interviews with individual farmers and fishermen with scenes of packaging and processing inside an Austrian chicken plant or on an industrial fishing boat. The camera’s solemn recording of these and other industrialized crimes builds into an unforgettable crescendo of terror that far surpasses anything to be found in the 3,000-screen opening of that Jessica Alba Asian horror film remake.

The film’s strength is its clear-eyed presentation and representation of work, making a vivid contrast between individual food-gathering and the computerized, denatured realization of profit that is factory farming. Wagenhoefer’s depiction of the brutal dehumanization of migrant farm workers, the genocidal treatment of animals, and the wholesale raping of the earth will make you think twice about picking up that ribeye and corn for your Super Sunday tailgate party.

A warning about the ending. We arrive at the top of the food chain: an interview with Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck who, with disgust and disdain, dismisses any notion that natural or organic food may be healthier or taste better than manmade hybrids. Brabeck’s closing thoughts on humans, food, and the nature of work can’t help but make you re-examine your understanding of what you eat. And as with any CEO of a multinational corporation, his lecture is and reassuring... isn’t it?

Watch We Feed the World online at www.video.google.ca.