MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Famine’ Documentary Offers Food for Thought

“The Famine Within,” which starts today at the NuWilshire, is a documentary about women and food, a subject already covered, in fictional terms, by Henry Jaglom’s amused, affectionate “Eating.” In “Famine,” the same obsessions are examined from a broader perspective: sociocultural, psychological, radical-political.

We see women who’ve eaten themselves into obesity, women who’ve starved themselves into anorexic wrecks, women trying to pound, pummel and aerobicize their figures into the perfect curvature--which, we’re told by a male model scout, is 34B-24-34, give or take an inch, spread over a 5-foot-10 frame. We see youngsters planning their first diet: 80% of California fourth-grade girls are already counting calories.

Obviously, there’s a bit of madness to all this. Lives are ruined, images inflated or destroyed, psyches damaged, by an inch or so of cellulite. “The Famine Within”--written, directed and produced by Katherine Gilday--is a talking heads documentary in which many of the heads have been either stuffing themselves or bent over sinks, vomiting.

It’s a movie full of overeaters, undereaters, and sociologists and psychologists offering food for thought: a film that portrays a serious cultural dysfunction.

There is, some experts maintain, a bodily configuration toward which an individual naturally progresses; identical twins, raised separately, in different environments, often end up with the same figure.

So, women trying to starve and sculpt themselves into that perfect 34-24-34--already a step thinner than the once-legendary 36-24-36--become slaves of social convention and prejudice. As our national ideals become thinner, so too, it seems, does our conception of ideal feminine beauty.

Is all of this related to the sexual revolution and a conservative obsession with hiding your sins? If so, bulimia--eating your cake and then not having it--may be the most extreme manifestation. While the Druids worshiped trees and the Egyptians worshiped the sun, Americans--at least, upscale Americans--spend their lives fixated on their bathroom scales.

And there’s a crazy irony in all this, which Kilday doesn’t completely uncover: the United States and Canada as nations of gluttons who want to look trim and fit, with a rich upper class who want the figures of physical laborers.

“The Famine Within” (Times rated: Mature, for nudity), a documentary award winner in Canada, is more interesting for subject than handling, information than style. Its cinematography is a bit drab; it belongs, perhaps, more on TV, where it would win a much wider audience, than in a movie house.

Yet, as long as Kilday is in an exploratory mood, the film is valuable. When she tries to offer a solution, it gets strained: a silly coda scene, where four nude women of different shapes beam at each other with sisterly camaraderie in the shower. Interestingly, none is outstandingly plump. More cultural prejudice?

‘The Famine Within’

A Panorama Entertainment Corp. presentation of a Kandor Prod. production, in association with Telefilm Canada/The Ontario Film Development Corp./National Film Board of Canada/TVOntario. Director-producer-screenplay Katherine Gilday. Executive producer Paul Jay. Cinematographer Joan Hutton. Editor Petra Valier. Music Russell Walker. Sound Marc Chiasson, Mark Holden, Chaim Gilad. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Times-rated Mature (Adult discussions, nudity).