We Are What We Eat
2004 · 24m · Canada
Directed by Aube Giroux
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, sensual, tender
Farmers, growers, and a chef pursue food production at a human pace, guided by taste and environmental care. Their work with wheat, strawberries, and wine offers an alternative to industrial agribusiness pressures.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a gorgeous love letter to slowness, sure, but it's also the exact film everyone expects a doc about ethical farming to be—meditative, sensual, unimpeachable. Giroux made the 'right' choices, which is precisely why I'm bored.
Giroux situates this squarely in the essay-film tradition—part Koenig, part Varda—where sensory attention becomes argument; the formal rigor of how she frames a strawberry or a glass of wine *is* the counterargument to industrial speed.
The decision to let silence and the sound of growing things carry narrative weight instead of voiceover could've been precious, but Giroux commits absolutely—it's the constraint that makes the whole thing breathe.