FOOD BEWARE: THE FRENCH ORGANIC REVOLUTION
Directed by Jean-Paul Jaud
Produced by Jean-Paul & Béatrice Jaud
Released by First Run Features
French with English subtitles
France. 112 min. Not Rated
 

Rows of sunflowers and fields of lavender don’t normally conjure images of toxic pesticides, rampant cancer rates, and birth defects, but, as we learn in Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution, an idyllic setting is no talisman against modern life. Set in a resplendent Provence, this documentary about the hazards of industrial food production adds to a conversation already in full swing in films like Super Size Me, King Corn, and Food Inc.

Unlike its muckraking counterparts, director Jean-Paul Jaud tackles the issue from a refreshing perspective. The more common evidence-heavy, accusatory format that relegates a vague call-to-action to the closing credits is flipped on its head, and instead, a viable solution takes center stage. The film documents an organic revolution in the canteens of a few elementary schools, led by a civic-minded mayor and embraced by a willing community. More than just a transition to a local, all-organic diet, the students are taught to garden, made aware of environmental issues, and encouraged to switch to an organic diet at home. The result, at least as it is presented in this optimistic documentary, goes beyond building healthful habits for a handful of children to motivating regional organic farmers, and, perhaps, training a new generation of crunchy earth warriors.

To be fair, eking out an organic existence in the French countryside isn’t exactly a coup d’état. Show me a New York inner-city public school with a flourishing rooftop garden and a sustainable organic menu and I’ll stand up and clap. France, with its economy less chocked by mammoth capitalistic interest and its people more attuned to environmental problems, should have an easier time breaking out of the industrial food cycle.

Or maybe things just look greener on the other side of the pond. In reality, France is the main European user of pesticides and the third or second in the world. In Europe, 70 percent of cancers are linked to the environment, 100,000 children die of environment-related diseases every year, and cancer is skyrocketing. These facts are woven into the film in dramatic captions superimposed over frozen frames and espoused by experts at a UNESCO conference that serves as the film’s only break from the narrative.

But Food Beware doesn’t rely as much on facts as it does on human decency and our emotion. Seeing beautiful children planting cabbage, slurping organic noodles, and staging performances dedicated to the environment will have everyone craving a salt-of-the-earth dinner and a trip to Provence. And, unlike the solutions proposed by other films, which push a wider, more political agenda, the decision to change our diets—as a community, a school, or even a family—seems intoxicatingly simple. Yana Litovsky
October 16, 2009