TO assemble the data for this documentary examining the effect of sugar, more specifically, fructose, on human health, writer/director/principal player Damon Gameau offered himself as the guinea pig for trials partly monitored by qualified health professionals but mostly devised by Gameau himself.
It’s a delightful film brimming with information, humour and visual delights. But it sent me away uncomfortable about two aspects.
To express his theses in terms easy and comfortable to comprehend, Gameau uses the teaspoon as his standard measure. I did a little experiment. Three teaspoons, with big, medium and little bowls. Filled using a method similar to Gameau’s in his film. Weighed on an electronic scale of one gram sensitivity. Five, four and three grams respectively. How long is a piece of string?
I praise Gameau for his film’s intentions. Scientists explain how sugar works and what it does in the human body. We should learn, inwardly digest and remember this. The film postulates that the role of fats in weight gain is less than that of fructose. It explains the differences between natural and processed food, between subcutaneous and visceral fat. And much more.
The film runs for 90 minutes. People may stagger under its considerable information load, a defect that makes taking many documentaries on board a burden. Gameau uses imaginative techniques to ease that difficulty, particularly laughter that rather overwhelms what was on the screen immediately before. That’s regrettable, because, notwithstanding the two defects that I’ve mentioned, we ignore his message at our peril.
At Palace Electric and Capitol 6
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