Virunga and Supersize Me are two documentaries exploring industrialism, business-before-anything-else mindsets, and the consequence of those two things. While these two documentaries’ setting and narrative train could not be more different, the same message comes from them both: Unchecked industrialism is destructive to those that are victim to it. This post will compare these documentaries in this post.
Virunga is set in a Congolese park district with the same name. Its story follows the park rangers and journalists in the region while civil war breaks out and a foreign oil company tries to invade the park. Virunga’s preservation is placed in danger due to those previously mentioned threats. The film wants the viewer to have sympathy for the park and the film’s narrative tension relies on this sympathy. The film garners this sympathy by the views of the rangers. The park rangers are willing to give their life to protect the park to preserve it for later generations, as shown in the funeral at the start of the film. Also, the films cinematography contains many time-lapses and macros of the wildlife/landscape which characterize the park. When war finally does breakout between the park rangers and a (potentially) oil-company backed rebel group, the audience sympathizes with the rangers. The documentaries tension is at the highest point during these sequences of war and the viewer wants the rangers to survive even as they are backed into a figurative corner.
The film concludes with the skirmish coming to an end. It has been clearly built up to this point. That the foreign oil company had a large part to do with the conflict. Ultimately, the movie ends as uneasy as it began. The park is still on the fringe of being overrun.
Supersize Me’s tone is a lot lighter than Virunga despite the themes being the same. Supersize Me follows Morgan Spurlock (also the film’s director) as he embarks on a 30-day McDonald’s only diet. During the course of the film Spurlock health declines while he is on this diet. However, uses this diet to explore how the junk food industry attempts to invade people’s lives to get them addicted to junk food. Through several interviews he explores the food industry’ involvement in the government, their marketing campaigns to children, their foothold in the school system, and their addictive ingredients. Spurlock also explores through various meetings and interviews with health experts, how to deal with junk food. What Spurlock reveals about the food industry is disturbing, but at the same time the documentary does not feel like that. He uses bright color palettes, cheerful animations, and even his own sarcastic personality to keep a light tone throughout the film. That light tone is very different from the wartime intensity of Virunga.
Both films took a deep dive into industrialism in their own investigative styles. Their stories were well constructed and meaningful. Both films deserve any praise that they receive.
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