Film tip Our daily bread

Heilpraxisnet.de- Movie tip: „Our daily bread“

As part of the 3sat theme day „Pure taste thing“ was the documentary on Sunday „Our daily bread“ the bustling Austrian Nikolaus Geyrhalter ("The year after Dayton", „alluvial“, „Allentsteig“), which he directed between October 2003 and October 2005 in several European countries such as Croatia, Poland, Norway and others. The film was created in coproduction with ZDF and 3sat.

Geyrhalter has wordlessly portrayed industrial food and animal production in his 2006 film. Between the sequences from the production sites, those working in the companies are to be seen on their way to work or in the breaks. Through the uncommented nature of the presentation, the juxtaposed scenes visualize how massively man controls nature and animals and uses them for his purposes. The scenes, in which chicks are sorted and more than objects, are almost brutal, as they are reminiscent of living creatures. Similarly brutal is the filming of industrial pig slaughtering, machine fish processing or slaughtering of semen by bulls. Living beings are degraded here to soulless utilizable material and also the busy workers appear more as machines than as people with heart and compassion.

Just because of its way of leaving the settings uncommented, the film adds to the effect of the pictures. The makers themselves indicate on their website that „Our daily bread“ on „Picture meal in the widescreen format“ be that „not always easy to digest“ but that we share in. By design, the audience will „Room for your own insights“ calmly.

Anyone who has seen these images will be critical of high-tech food production and the prevailing production line mentality, albeit mostly at short notice. The irreverent dealings with and the almost arrogant and self-righteous exploitation of animal and nature seem absurd. Geyrhalter is to be thanked for his subtly sensitizing work, which will hopefully entail a process of questioning the purchase of industrially manufactured goods among as many people as possible. (tf, 29.11.2010)