How big is your longing for meat? Are you someone who has to eat a piece of meat every day because you will get the feeling that you haven’t eaten anything if you didn’t? Documentary maker Marijn Frank has that feeling and it’s strong. So strong that according to an MRI-scan she thinks more about meat than about sex (of which this documentary shows some explicit images). She wants to understand that obsession, especially because she has made the choice to not give her daughter any meat. Her “relationship” with meat is complex and in this documentary (Vleesverlangen means longing for meat) she investigates this.
She does this in various ways, but the most important one is that she wants to face the reality of meat: killing an animal. She wants to work at a slaughterhouse as an intern, learning about the process and killing an animal herself. When she first witnesses a cow being shot it is almost too much for her to handle, she’s scared, afraid to watch and has doubts if she’ll ever be able to pull the trigger herself. At the same time she regularly visits a psychologist to talk about her feelings about meat and her experience in the slaughterhouse. A chef who is specialised in preparing quality meat of special breeds (making sure they don’t go extinct by doing so) shows her how much better that meat tastes.
The end result is a documentary which shows a side of food we normally don’t like to think about. It confronts you regularly, but also has moments of humour. You regularly see Frank in dream scenes where she’s experiencing almost erotic moments related to meat, with grease from the food dripping from her mouth or shots where she’s covered by slices of meat. This movie informs, but does so from a very personal point of view. The camera is mainly pointed at her, so the moment a cow is shot isn’t shown. It’s clear which emotions she is going through, but because you don’t see it yourself as a viewer the impact is less direct. Still it is a documentary with a clear message which makes you realise what has happened before you are able to eat it.
