Finding North

The title "Finding North" refers to our country's moral compass, which has gone awry according to this well produced documentary. This film exposes an often unseen problem in our society: hunger. 

We are prone to thinking that hunger only strikes sub-Saharan Africa (as the film points out) but it is pervasive within our own country. 1 in 6 Americans do not have enough to eat; 50 million deal with "food insecurity," which is defines as not knowing where your next meal may come from.

This is obviously a complex issue. The film does an excellent job of humanizing the various kinds of people, both urban and rural, who deal with this problem. They cover a great deal of ground, including examining how our country's rising rate of obesity is deeply connected to hunger. In essence, unhealthy calories are cheapest. When living on a budget, chips and cookies are cheaper tummy-fillers than fruit.

"Finding North" proposes that this is a governmental issue, as we our government primarily subsidizes the ingredients in processed foods but not fresh fruit. 

This film is challenging and extremely frustrating. It spends a great deal of time examining the lack of quantity and health of food available to children and it's appalling to see that so many of our children are hungry when our nation is so prosperous. 

I suppose I have two reflections on this film. The first is that I think it tries to do too much. It appears to me that with every new thing they learned about this issue (such as obesity being linked to hunger) they discovered several more issues. While there is some great information in this film, it doesn't seem to have any kind of narrative direction. It does a great job presenting lots of information but does not seem to arrive anywhere. My second thought comes out of that: I found myself disturbed but without direction. While I'm angry about such injustice, I don't know where to direct that. It is not the filmmakers' responsibility to provide me with that direction, but they document others' attempts to fix this with no avail. I don't expect them to provide me with a simple process or way to get involved, but the movie left me despairing that nothing can be done. While I leave feeling informed, I also feel helpless and therefore infuriatingly apathetic.