"Our Daily Bread" is an Austrian documentary movie from 10 years ago. The director is Nikolaus Geyrhalter and he also came up with the script together with Wolfgang Widerhofer. Both are truly prolific filmmakers and also worked together on other projects such as "Abendland". Their work here can actually be summarized pretty quickly. It is basically a making-of documentary of the food industry. There are parts about plants included and how they are processed, but the really crucial part here are the segments about cattle, which includes cows, chicken and pigs.
If you are interested in watching this, you probably have heard about "Earthlings", the American documentary that came out the very same year. There are some parallels, but there are also differences. One crucial differences is for example that Geyrhalter only included static camera shots here and also only recordings that he made himself. But the biggest difference is probably that there is no narration in this movie here. There are also no dialogs. Well.. there is some talking, but it's really irrelevant and adds nothing to the film in the sense of people being recorded during breakfast (eating meat). And there are no interviews in here. It is almost a silent movie and that is certainly not something for everybody, even if they are interested in the topic. All this is actually a reason why this documentary is so well-known, also outside German-speaking regions. You can easily watch this without being able to speak a single word German. But be ready to see some heartbreaking action if you feel with animals.
I personally am a vegetarian and if I wasn't one already, I'd probably be one after watching this movie. I also wonder how people are able to work in professions such as the ones depicted in here. The entire cast list are people who work on crop fields or slaughterhouses. They must not only do not be religious at all, but also perceive these creatures as things in order to be able to deal with what they are doing on a daily basis. I could never do that. Thank God I don't have to. Excellent documentary. One of the best of the year.
If you are interested in watching this, you probably have heard about "Earthlings", the American documentary that came out the very same year. There are some parallels, but there are also differences. One crucial differences is for example that Geyrhalter only included static camera shots here and also only recordings that he made himself. But the biggest difference is probably that there is no narration in this movie here. There are also no dialogs. Well.. there is some talking, but it's really irrelevant and adds nothing to the film in the sense of people being recorded during breakfast (eating meat). And there are no interviews in here. It is almost a silent movie and that is certainly not something for everybody, even if they are interested in the topic. All this is actually a reason why this documentary is so well-known, also outside German-speaking regions. You can easily watch this without being able to speak a single word German. But be ready to see some heartbreaking action if you feel with animals.
I personally am a vegetarian and if I wasn't one already, I'd probably be one after watching this movie. I also wonder how people are able to work in professions such as the ones depicted in here. The entire cast list are people who work on crop fields or slaughterhouses. They must not only do not be religious at all, but also perceive these creatures as things in order to be able to deal with what they are doing on a daily basis. I could never do that. Thank God I don't have to. Excellent documentary. One of the best of the year.