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Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Excellent but underrated film

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

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.

This film is great if you really need that last kick to get you to go vegetarian and organic. The way the animals are treated is sad, if you are at all empathic. Watching vegetables get sprayed with tons of herbicides will probably make you a little queasy too. And, since so much food is now GMO, it makes you wonder exactly what we are ingesting. The silence of the film allows you to really ponder what has happened to our food production. The fact that there is so much stainless steel and so little humanity in our food production begins to bother you. Doesn't the human element matter? In Buddhism and Native American cultures it is believed that the way your food is processed affects how it is assimilated in your body. In other words, if your mother makes you a meal, and wishes for that food to nourish you, then the belief is that it is better for you than if someone who does not like you makes your meal. Considering that the world is just an illusion of states of energy that mostly seem solid, it does seem feasible that the energy of love from your mother (or any other human who might care) might be preferable than the energy of machines preparing your food. Also, what really struck me as I watched this was that the animals were treated horribly, there were thousands of them going down these conveyor belts and being sucked up by vacuums. As humans continue to overpopulate the earth it seems that the big companies will increasingly treat humans in the same manner, as animals of little consequence.

It is great. Not because of the subject or because I'm so interested in the food processing industry.(I'm really not) It is great because it ask and answer some really new things about documentary.If not new,"different" in the best possible interpretation of the word. No talking, that means no interview or voice over. No editing tricks,just perfect efficient shots, one after the other. Forget the angry guy behind the camera or the microphone who really wants to not only show but persuade you. Forget the radio-documentary, here come the images-documentary. If you liked Depardon's documentary, if you like photography, if you are tired of Mickael Moore, if you don't think you need to be told what to think when you can just see it, there is a movie for you. Its a lot more than a documentary about food industry as far as I'm concern, its about backing up and trying to get " a bigger picture"MAc

The recent film "Fast Food Nation" imposes a fictional narrative onto the factual expose of Eric Schlosser's informative and horrifying book about (among other things) the industrialization of agriculture. The documentary "Our Daily Bread" makes no such concession to its audience's need for story, presenting virtually wordlessly scene after scene of modern food production in action.It's a cliché at this point to note how modern consumers are alienated from their diets, making no connection between the plastic-wrapped pieces of muscle they purchase in the supermarket and the animals they were once part of. Still, Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter presents dozens of memorable and fascinating images, not all of them of the gross-out variety. In fact, there's even an abstract beauty to some of what we see, at least until we realize it's all part of a vast killing machine.Difficult to sit through, "Our Daily Bread" is nonetheless an important record, invaluable for those with the courage to watch it.