Free «Hungry for Change: Documentary Film Analysis» Essay Sample

1. Hungry for Change is an eighty-nine-minute documentary directed and produced by James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch in Australia. The movie was released by Permacology Production, premiered on the 21st of March 2012 and was distributed worldwide. In this documentary, Daniel Vitalis (Traditional and Wild Foods Expert), Dr. Christiane Northrup (Best-Selling Women’s Health Author), and John Gabriel (Author and Weigh Loss Expert) share their expert and qualitative opinions concerning the dietary regime and weight loss, consumerism and nutritional habits and tell about the secrets that the food industry does not want consumers to know.

The film shows American dietary lifestyle and aims at highlighting the issue of consumer society development and the causes of health problems related to food and diets. Humanity is blamed for excessive concern for its external qualities rather than internal ones. The main idea of the movie is as simple as a pie. While one is trying to handle any exterior problems such as overweight, the cause of them must be treated from the inside. The major points of the modern era are the biggest health enemies which include: vegetable oils, propylene glycol (solvent for drinks and acids), the low fat food, MSG (sodium salt improving the taste of food), Aspartame (artificial sweetener), and others. The scientists in the film characterized this issue in the following way: "It is not what you eat, it is also what is eating you" (Colquhoun & ten Bosch, 2012).

2. The entire film discusses the problems of marketing deception and the absence of time for people to eat healthy food. The idea of marketing deception in the documentary is based on the statement that products are made for the long-term use and thus have to look and taste good. Additionally, their main mission is to make money, not to make people healthy. It is a problem of the modern era when people are busy and absolutely thoughtless about the way they care about themselves. The advice of scientists is to read the labels, not believe in what is in an advertisement of the food, and look at the ingredients of the product.

The documentary investigates particular story of the woman diagnosed with cancer. She started looking for a cause of her disease. She decided to investigate the food she ate, the way of life she followed, and the impact of her habits on her organism. It has been found out that a great amount of sugar destroyed human's metabolism. With personal interviews throughout the documentary, one would come to understand that people make no connection between sugar and refined carbohydrate sugar. A great part of the film is devoted to showing people their addiction to food and an example of consuming Diet Cola. As some of the interviewees/actors have claimed that Diet Cola brings us satisfaction, but then it destroys the brain cells. Additionally, people do not consume white sugar, and they think it is a diet, but researchers have shown people the impact of glycemic carbohydrates. These artificial sweetener turns to sugar after consumption and harms hormones, namely insulin.

“If you’re looking to reduce sugar intake, your definition of “what is sugar” really needs to expand. It’s more than just the white powder” (Colquhoun & ten Bosch, 2012).

Another part of the film explains that cocaine is a chemically processed component of a natural occurring plant comparing it with sugar. By discussing this similarity, one comes to see that cocaine sugar is not a natural product of the sugarcane. It is a chemical drug.

“We’re becoming culturally more comfortable with recognizing white sugar as a drug. People are starting to understand how addictive substance it is.” (Colquhoun & ten Bosch, 2012).

The next step of the experts in Hungry for Change was to move on to discuss diets including two processes – detoxification and juicing. Throughout the film, the experts tend to make a strong emphasis on detoxification claiming that one cannot really lose weight unless the detoxification step is adhered to, mentioning its importance, principles of work, and positive effects on our bodies.

3. Hungry for Change is an informative documentary that does a great job not only in informing people about the bad food but also answering and explaining the questions “Why?” and “How?”. The plot of the film is professionally designed and is aimed at basic understanding of the issues it discusses. The film succeed in appealing to the viewers’ emotions and minds. For example, advertisement of Cola is showed as a means to hang up with friends, have fun on the beach, and be socially successful. It is aimed to lure more customers and keep them buying it rather than show people its real impact. In fact, the marketing lies to people. Plot is not the only successful thing in the movie. The experts use a quite simple language that does not sound sophisticated for everyman. The language used helped them successfully connect to the audience without professional or specialized knowledge in this particular matter. The film tries to persuade watchers and make people think “I can’t have it”. Instead of this, they are to start thinking “I do not need or want it” and therefore succeed in changing their perceptions to the better.

As one can notice, throughout the film, diverse figures of speech were used; for example, experts used metaphors and metonymy in some parts to make it easier, less scientific, and more interesting for different viewers to understand and relate to. “People, as mammals, are programmed to put on fat whenever there is food available” (Colquhoun & ten Bosch, 2012).

The movie was generally made for all those, who are trying to look further into their dietary lifestyles. It can also be considered a greatstarting pointfor people who are specifically trying to change their diet but lack self-sustainability, time, and, therefore, opportunity to change their lives for better such as working parents, obese people, or people who have no background on this matter.