For the past few weeks I've been having flashbacks of a video that a vegan acquaintance posted on Facebook. Shot on a hidden camera, it depicted hundreds of fluffy male chicks getting conveyed into an industrial grinder, their punishment for being deemed surplus to requirements. Omelets haven't tasted the same since.
There are many cruelties involved in commercial food production, though only a few of them seem to garner widespread news coverage. When Louie Psihoyos' 2009 documentary "The Cove" focused international ire on the annual dolphin drive hunt in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, supporters of the practice were quick to argue, "Yeah, but look at all the unsavory stuff you guys do to put food on your tables."
This is one of the principal arguments advanced in "Behind 'The Cove,' " first-time director Keiko Yagi's rebuttal. "The Cove" was shamelessly one-sided but brilliantly wrought, told with the propulsive energy of a heist movie. Yagi's film, an opportunistic mulch of moral relativism, revisionism and obfuscation, can feel more like scrolling through a YouTube comment thread.
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