Food, Inc.

Food , Inc. explores the root of the evil we call nourishment in this country. Everything to be believed about the quintessential American farmer, the effort of the Food and Drug Administration to protect us from harm, and eating chicken being better for you than eating beef will be challenged while watching Food, Inc. What can now be understood is that corn rules, food is poison, farmers are forced to be cruel to animals and the earth to survive, and the government agencies in place to protect you from harm are in cahoots with profit driven food corporations. The stories covered in this documentary may force viewers to become the most disillusioned genetically modified food eating consumers in history.

Take for instance the story about the chicken farmer Carole Morrison, who is expected to grow a chicken from egg to filet in six weeks. This requires an atmosphere for the chickens that, well, isn’t very chicken like. No light, no room to move, and the inability to walk because they are so overgrown with steroids and an unnatural diet that their bodies are too heavy for their legs to carry them. When Carole who makes a measly $18,000/year raising and selling these chickens puts her foot down about this chicken abuse and fights the giant corporation that buys her chicken meat about not allowing light into her chicken house, they cancel her contract.

Then there is the tragic story about an E.Coli breakout that caused the death of Barbara Kowalcyk’s young son and her subsequent plight to put a stop to any such future tragedies. The story behind the story; well it turns out that the cows aren’t supposed to eat corn, which allows unnatural bacteria to grow in their manure, which cows stand in up to their knee caps, unable to move, in an overcrowded corral. Nor is the rain water that runs through the feces filled cow farm supposed to be able to spill down into the spinach field next door. If you are wondering why we feed cows corn if it isn’t part of their native diet, the answer is simple: cheap corn equals cheap feed, equals cheap meat, equals more meat sold, equals big profits for the meat company. Where is the Food and Drug Administration while all this filth is running through farms you ask? Not doing inspections apparently, for according to Food, Inc., they performed approximately 40,000 less inspections in 2006 than they did in 1972.

All these stories force the viewer to wonder about the American food consumer’s lack of a relationship with their food; especially if that food once had eyes. Joel Salatin, a good old fashioned “natural” farmer in the film said “industrial food is not honest food” and he believes you can “meet the need without compromising integrity”. In other words the consumer should demand that we let cows act like cows, and chickens act like chickens and let food corporations either cowboy up or squander. We should buy more and locally grown, fresh, organic foods. Which begs another question the movie explores; “what if you can’t afford it?”. Everyone knows the cheaper the food is the worse it is for you (think fast food), and this film clearly points to big food business, with bigger profits, and gigantic heavy hands as the reason. Large food corporations rebuttal by saying they are doing us a huge favor with the level of efficiency they provide and that America would have a food shortage if it wasn’t for their iron fisted national network. Food, Inc. sheds a beaming light on what now appears to be an obvious fact: efficiency equals bad food.

Is this corporation-farmer-consumer paradigm sounding familiar to caregivers reading this? Big business with big profits (pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies) forcing the middle man (nurse and other healthcare providers) to manipulate the product (caregiving) at risk to the consumer (patient). I highly recommend Food, Inc., if not for your own health and well-being, for the health and well-being of your patients.

Talk to Her

Described as suspenseful, tragic, and comedic, “Talk to Her” is suspenseful, and tragic, but I could find nothing humorous in this provocative, and stimulating yet disturbing and all socially, spiritually, and artistically complicated 14th film by Spanish writer/director Pedro Almodovar. The complicated part is what makes this one of the most difficult reviews I have written to date.

Revolving around the obsessions of the sexually ambiguous nurse Benigno (Javier Camara), who cares for those who can’t care for themselves and obsesses over everything they themselves are obsessed with. The main object of Benigno’s attention and affection (which is where the complications begin) is a patient in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). She ended up in Benigno’s facility a week after the voyeuristic Benigno fell in love with her while watching her out the window dancing at the ballet studio across the street from the apartment he lives in with his recently deceased mother. The mother whom he cared for exclusively (neglecting his own needs entirely) until her death. This is where the inappropriate juxtaposition of caregiver and cared for begins and continues with just about every relationship Almodovar has created in this Oscar winning screenplay.

Resonating with the nurse viewer may be Benigno’s insistence that the comatose patient can hear everything you say, (hence the title “Talk to Her”), his belief that outward beauty is still as important as inner health in promoting healing, and that caring for the infirmed is a privilege. Benigno tells his friend Marco (Dario Grandinetti) whose bullfighter girlfriend is also stricken with PVS “the last four years have been the richest of my life taking care of Alicia”, provoking two reactions at once: how beautiful and how sad. Resonations aside, repulsion is abound with accusations of patient sexual abuse, breaches of patient confidentiality, and the offbeat portrayal of most of the other nurses in the film. The two reactions now: how sad and how pathetic.

This is how the entire movie goes, contrasting ideals smashed together in the name of art. Layer and layer upon allegorical themes seemingly meant to jerk the viewer away from everything they think is true about life. Those who are attracted to the kind of social allegory this movie presents should be prepared for some bizarre side stories like when Benigno is describing to Alicia a silent film he went to see about a shrinking man who climbs all over and inside his lover’s body. Or when Benigno’s Alicia (Leonor Watling) and Lydia (Rosario Flores) the bullfighter and goring victim locked in by the affliction of PVS are propped out on the terrace at the hospital in brightly colored robes, fully made up with cosmetics and sunglasses.

And so, “Talk to Her” twists, turns, and bumps on like the unpaved back roads of Spain, pulling at the strings and lighting the fire of your heart, and perhaps to some, tickling your funny bone. My face was forever stern, and probably wrinkled in perplexity. As an avid Almodovar fan, I truly appreciate the film and will admit it stayed with me for weeks after first viewing it (just what the author intended?). As a critic and a nurse I am not confident to recommend it, but will, with the understanding that nurses are deeply contemplative and imaginative beings that at the least will appreciate the thought provoking challenges presented to the viewer.

“Talk to Her” is rated R
Reviewer Rating: 3 out of 5 boxes of popcorn (2 with my nursing hat on, 4 with my movie and Almodovar loving hat on=3)
Sony Pictures Classics
Written and Directed by: Pedro Almodovar
Spanish with English subtitles

Starring Javier Cámara (Benigno), Darío Grandinetti (Marco), Leonor Watling (Alicia), Rosario Flores (Lydia), Geraldine Chaplin (Katarina), Mariola Fuentes (Rosa) and Lola Dueñas (Matilde).