2000 documentary
Rating: 16/20
Plot: Chickens.
This is from Mark Lewis, the guy responsible for Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, another entertaining and unusual documentary. This is chickens and it's a natural history. Really, it has a lot more to do with people and their relationships with chickens than chickens themselves, and it really couldn't be more entertaining. In fact, it might be "eggsactly what you're looking for" if you want something that will make you laugh and, if you're anything like me, just feel a whole lot better about the world in general. There's a lot of yodeling though. It sounds like the music in Raising Arizona which is from the throat of Pete Seeger if I'm remembering correctly. You get to see a woman in Maine with sixteen chickens, chickens she refers to as her "friends." Her story is one where she resuscitates her once-lost-but-now-found-frozen chicken with CPR. It's an odd enough story, but here it's portrayed with reenactments complete with dramatic music, and it's hilariously awesome. That's juxtaposed with shots of incubators and fattening facilities where week-old chicks are pushed along a conveyor belt and vaccinated roughly. You get a tale of a guy who likes roosters and the noise pollution that his neighbors complain about; a guy in overalls imitating chickens; a red-haired lady who blow-dries her Pavarotti-loving rooster that she refers to as her "soul mate," writes poetry about, and dresses in something she calls "panties;" a chicken whisperer; a guy named Elwynjohn who spins a yarn about a headless chicken named Mike that lived ("That's when I started thinking, 'Boy, I'd like to have that.'"); a guy's story about one of his chickens and a hawk (again reenacted, seemingly without special effects which is remarkable) that will more than likely make a believer out of you. What you'll believe in is beyond me, but you'll believe in something! Pretty awesome stuff, despite that "eggsactly" pun.
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