Edible City

Hard on the heels of Slow Food Story (VL-1/15)—Stefano Sardo's spirited documentary about the international movement to encourage local food production and regional cuisine both to improve diet and protect the environment—comes this engaging film by Andrew W. Hasse, which offers a microcosmic view, focusing on the Good Food Movement that has sprung up in the San Francisco Bay region. We hear comments from theorists who talk about how the industrialization of agriculture began during World War II (with one suggesting that many of us are now effectively “eating oil”), witness scenes of individuals who begin small gardens on public land, and meet dedicated believers who work in co-ops that aim to produce nutritious canned goods (often made from scraps that might normally be thrown away), to be provided at reasonable cost to locals. The claims that some make for the project—one insists it's a cutting-edge endeavor that will eventually become popular, while another describes it as the recovery of a lost art designed to “reintegrate human beings into the natural world”—sometimes sound extravagant, but overall this is an affectionate portrait of individuals (some eccentric) who are deeply committed to what they believe is a worthwhile, indeed necessary, enterprise. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)