Bacon & God's Wrath
2015 · 9m · Canada
Directed by Sol Friedman
Genres: comedy, documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, humorous, whimsical
A 90-year-old Jewish woman whose discovery of the internet led her to atheism prepares to eat bacon for the very first time.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
This premise is so specificity-driven it almost collapses into preciousness—a 90-year-old Jewish woman, atheism via WiFi, bacon as the ritual transgression—but Friedman somehow keeps it from becoming smug, which is the hardest contrarian trick of all.
The film situates itself in a lineage of intimate essay documentaries that treat quotidian ritual as philosophical inquiry; the restraint in not overselling the metaphor demonstrates real formal discipline.
What elevates this above a greeting-card premise is the decision to let silences and small behavioral choices do the thematic work instead of narration spelling out the atheism arc—you feel her reconsidering a lifetime of restrictions in the space between moments.
Reviews
Sol Friedman's documentary "Bacon and God's Wrath" is a charming interview piece that encompasses animation, old home movies, puppetry, talking pigs and artificial intelligence. The act of trying bacon for the first time is really just a launching point for the discussion of breaking down one's own barriers of beliefs and constraints that become part of one's own DNA after a lifetime of (in)experience.
Festivals
- Sundance Film Festival 2016, Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction
- Toronto International Film Festival 2015, Official selection