Film Before I saw Super Size Me I tasted my first Cheeseburger Pastry from a Delicatessen. This was a hamburger topped with cheese and tomato relish in a puff pastry. It was absolutely gorgeous. On my way to the cinema I popped into a newsagent and bought a Cherry Coke and a Snickers Flapjack. As I ate each and every one of these delicacies I knew the overloaded sugar content I was taking in and how unhealthy it probably all was. But I understood that I could make up the lost ground with as light dinner and some fibre. Then I watched the movie and realized how much I was deluding myself. We humans haven't the first idea about when food is and isn't good for us.
As a polemic, it can't really be compared to Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11'. They are similar - in that its an American interviewing his people and other experts on the subject of a multi-national organization with the intention of revealing the rights and wrongs of what they're doing to the audience. But for me it's actually close to the kind of storymentary which Dave Gorman indulges in - the setting of a crazy challenge which couldn't be surely undertaken by anyone and filming the results. If this had just been a documentary about the evils of fast food told in a straight style it could have become quite tiring. But by introducing his central conceit of eating Macdonalds morning, noon and night for a calendar month, director Morgan Spurlong creates an element of tension that carries the viewer throughout.
I noticed on leaving the cinema that a poster in the lobby trumpeted that the film had won an award at a comedy festival. Which is unusual because it's not actually all that funny it a droll sense. When Spurlong pukes in a parking lot after eating his first Supersized Meal, our laughter feels like its coming from the same headspace as Mtv's Jackass played out over an extended period - a kind of nervous surprise because we can't believe he's doing it. As the doctors all tell him he's making a terrible mistake and he should give up or die, you begin to wonder if his life is worth risking for the good of the film - what exactly is he trying to prove and to whom? At which point it enters a different world of human tragedy, but about the desperation of the film maker. Who thought we'd witness that kind of bravery in the name of this project?
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