Meat, Get Out
A local documentary gives vegans and meat-eaters alike something to chew on.
There are confronting images in this engaging local doco that makes case studies of three farmers and a hunter and lets them ponder their place in the food chain.
It’s a film that reminds us that turning animals into meat isn’t pretty. Neither is the business of raising, breeding or – in the bushman’s case – shooting them.
There is a point behind the occasional grisliness, though it’s not an obvious one. It seems that White, heard only briefly as interviewer, isn’t out to suggest that meat farming and consumption are bad things.
His is a restrained study of how things are in the New Zealand meat trade. It’s a story told mostly by his quartet of primary producers, some clearly feeling unfairly maligned by the non-farming world about their roles and methods.
The odd man out is hunter Josh James. Watching him shoot, gut and carry home a chamois in South Island alpine country (“this is my supermarket”) gives Meat some impressive cinematic moments. James, who already has an online and social media profile, gives good quotes as a bushman-philosopher (sample: “I would
climb to the top of the mountain if there was something to shoot there”).
Great scenery aside, though, his part of the doco can feel a little too calculated and Discovery Channel-like in its delivery, and the remainder, which spends time down on the farm with Jill (sheep and cattle), Tony (chickens) and Ian (pigs), makes Meat feel more like a Viceland spin on Country Calendar.
The most forthright of the rural trio is Ian, who defends his industrial piggery against assumptions of cruelty (“Don’t tell us we don’t look after animals”) while talking across the top of a dozen penned pigs. He also offers a frank demonstration of animal husbandry.
Likewise, Whanganui chicken farmer Tony is unapologetic about the efficiency of his hatch-and-dispatch factory. And it’s up to ex-cop Jill to show us that the tough taciturn Kiwi farmer is alive and well in the Manawatu.
Together, they’re four memorable New Zealand characters who make a persuasive case in support of the not-for-everyone job of turning living things into edible protein. It’s a stimulating food doco that maybe doesn’t add much new ammo to any vegetarian vs omnivore debate but still gives plenty for both to chew over.
IN CINEMAS NOW
His quartet of primary producers clearly feel unfairly maligned by the non-farming world about their roles and methods.