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I loved the tagline, “Are we what we eat?‘. Have heard this a hundred times since I was a child from my father. No, not that he came up with this himself..he was just quoting Kautilya. I had never thought that it could be a point of departure for such an amazing film.

Fast Food Nation is a thoughtfully made provocative film. It provokes us to think. If questioning the state of our being is politics, it’s a deeply political film replete with dark humor and bizarre but seemingly real situations.

A US food chain is worried about the possible drop in sales following a survey that found high level of E coli bacteria in the beef they used in their hamburgers. Company boss puts it simply that there is “shit in the meat.” The vice president, marketing is set off on an investigation. He visits the slaughter house in Colorado and is pleasantly surprised to see the high standards of hygiene and cleanliness but what lies beneath that make-believe world is the slaughtered hopes of Mexican laborers.

His investigations leads him to a rancher and the agent who helped the company strike the deal with the slaughterhouse. This meetings only convinces him about the futility of the exercise he has undertaken. He succeeds in getting down to the bottom of the truth only to learn that “The Truth Is Hard To Swallow”.

The film progresses with stories of different characters. The Mexican laborers illegally cross the border and join the abattoir. A salesgirl at the food chain’s one of outlets hears her inner voice and joins a bunch of environmental activist college students.

The dramatic premise of the film, makes you giggle first then sets you thinking. The bright looking young marketing executive of the food chain, is investigating about shit - cow dung that’s making its way into their burgers. However he keeps swallowing them. Some of the conversations around the “shit” is superb. The marketing executive is told, little bit of shit we all need to eat.

Richard Linklater builds the story in the fashion of Crash, Traffic and Babel (Mexican Border seems to be the common element in all of them). The Mexican illegal migrants who work at the abattoir, the marketing executive, the ideologically inclined ambitious salesgirl. However what brings them together is the food chain and the “shit “.

Richard Linklater’s brilliant storytelling takes us gradually deeper into the narrative. As cinematically represented we are first shown the slaughterhouse, then taken inside, we remain at the chopping table for most of the film only to be shocked towards the end when we see through the timid eyes of a Mexican laborer the animals being slaughtered.

One brilliant touch was the incident with the college environment group. The young salesgirl has resigned from her job and joined this group. They first decide to write letters to the governor about the pollution this abattoir is responsible for. However they’re overtaken by their romantic fantasy of changing the world overnight. They decide to cut open the fences of the slaughterhouse thinking picturesquely “cows on the streets and cows on the highway”. Only to learn later that fences also exist in the minds.

Film could be accused of being talky, however dialogues are witty, humorous and certainly doesn’t sound like propaganda.

It captures ones imagination right from the beginning. As it investigates the “shit” in the meat. I feel redeemed being a vegetarian, however, The Fast Food Nation would be a sumptuous watch for non-vegetarians as well.

*I’m a vegetarian.

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