82 min 12 sec
Directed by Hugo Latulippe
Produced by André Gladu
A documentary from the National Film Board of Canada.
In modern Québec, the american dream seems to have replaced religion during difficult times. A number of groups of citizens have decided to take the lead for a more human economy and environment. Abandoned by the State, they attempt to rebuild democracy from square one. Until today, no voice representing the agricultural society had spoken to express their distress before a national dilemma.
The movie Bacon investigates the future that Québecois have in reserve for their farmland in the looming era of globalization. The porcine industry and its political allies have decided to conquer the world market. Every year, the owners of more sizable pork lots produce thouands of tons of liquid manure which is spread on québecois rural land. The high nitrogen level in the manure is what worries the rural folk, as their water wells are infected and the stench is unbearable. In Walkerton, Ontario, seven people were killed and 2300 were infected by the E.coli bacteria, found in the intestinal tracts of several animals, namely pigs.
Yet the few porcine industry owners only obey to the laws of supply and demand, and few municipal representatives or citizens have stood in the way of their systematic destruction of the environment.
During the year 2000, Hugo Latulippe has travelled across Québec to record the words and actions of the porcine industry owners, as well as those of their opponents. In 2001 he has presented his work all over the province in dozens of schools.
Bacon is representative of the québecois film tradition. It is shocking, funny, witty and informative. The director carefully takes us through the industry step by step through articulate interviews, simple scenes from the everyday life of the rural folk, and more disturbing images, such as the castration of piglets with a pair of pincers.
"The film is complex, as is life. We observe a duality that perhaps lies within each of us, to become rich or to prosper in the long-term. To serve ourselves without regard for future generations or to offer them a more human world. Each one of us rides on these troubled waters and resolve this interior conflict in hi or her own way. Some choose never to think about the disasters of exaggerated consumption and production. Others courageously stand in the way of neoliberalism and inevitably alienate themselves from the former."
-Hugo Latulippe