Origins of a Meal

Luc Moullet got a jump on cinematic critiques of neoliberalism with this seminal exposé of globalized, industrial farming at the moment it was taking shape. Moullet begins with a simple (if unorthodox) meal of a banana, tuna fish and a plain omelet then traces the path that each ingredient took to arrive at his plate. From a grocery store in Paris to fields in Ecuador and ports along the Ivory Coast, Moullet talks with corporate managers, government functionaries, marketing gurus and manual laborers all along the line to understand the human and environmental costs of this emergent system and its colonialist roots. As those costs have grown ever more pernicious, Moullet's prescient, in-depth analysis seems ever more vital. -UCLA (Luc Moullet, France, 1978, 112 min.) In French with English subtitles