I could talk about food all day. I spent the last week or so discussing Halloween candy strategies with all sorts of friends and family (putting a bunch inside a cookie was the best idea so far). But I can’t remember the last time I talked about the land the food is grown on, unless its some sort of Midwest corn joke. Common Ground certainly got the creative juices flowing though, really putting forward sunlight that photosynthesizes into rich nutrients for the soul, giving some hope for the future of feeding the world over the long term.
Directors Josh and Rebecca Tickell rally as many people to their cause. Celebrities everywhere are happy to sing the praises of revolutionary farmers like Gabe Brown and Roy Thompson. Those two learn from Native American farming methods of the past and apply them to humanity’s future. By farming in harmony with the natural ecosystem, instead of mass industrial farming, the long term benefits to the soil end up not only making the environment around the farm better as a whole, but also lead to greater long term profits.
The Tickell’s really understand the power of a great image. Their best trick here is drone shots, side by side, between a regenerative farm and and industrial farm. The contrast is striking: a luscious Eden vs. a desolate dirt cesspool. Even though they go to that well multiple times it’s always effective, and a great transition shot to another point they try to make. They do a pretty good job simplifying the dense chemistry and life science into a relatively easy graphic to help explain the greatest benefits of regenerative farming (more carbon/nitrogen in the soil, funghi and tree ecosystem networks, etc). The graphics move and evolve with the complex agricultural language spoken by the farmers to help mimic plant behaviors most people have seen since elementary school, making each point land for even city folk like myself. Distilling the science of regenerative farming is the most riveting part of Common Ground in a doc featuring multiple superheroes, a vampire, and a zombie killer.
In fact, all those celebs erode Common Ground’s power like industrial farming erodes topsoil. See I was paying attention! Even though they mean well, the actors are one of a few supportive groups luring people away from the real story the Tickell’s want to tell. A doc like this has to address the nay-sayers and the doubters, answering the big question marks people might have before demanding a wide spread pivot to regenerative farming. Like most US problems, I would love the doc to go deeper into the monetary gain from maintaining industrial farming status quo, describing all the beneficiaries and potential solutions to overcome the money problem. Instead, Common Ground gives all the supporters a chance to put in their thoughts on the subject, which unnecessarily clouds and complicates the big hurdles regenerative farming has to overcome. On top of that, we have to get a regenerative farming history lesson (not necessary in this doc) and worst of all, a host of celebrities getting air time as they narrate their part of the doc, which adds nothing except star power. Clearly those celebs got Common Ground made, but do the Tickells have to make a show every time they change narrators? I don’t think so. Getting “and another thing’d” by a documentary makes the story unfocused, making it harder to keep the viewer’s full attention.
Regardless, I’m glad enough people cared to do something. Common Ground has enough good ideas to make me more hopeful for the futures of a lot of different world problems. It’s easy to fall into a doom loop because of the sheer number of things that need fixing, but when something comes along that could potentially help fix a couple at a time like regenerative farming, it certainly feels worth my time. And hopefully yours too? Cause Woody Harrelson and Rosario Dawson told you so.