I recently got a chance to see the classic Disney animated film “The Lion King” on the big screen and I did have a visceral reaction to one sequence in particular: the bit where Timon and Pumbaa educate Simba in the culinary delight that are bugs. This scene — the slurping of worms, the chomping on slugs, the slimy (yet satisfying) mouthfuls of insect wings— is quite revolting.
So, imagine a live-action, special-effect-less, non-fiction human version of that bug-eating sequence, only instead of lasting for three minutes it lasts for approximately seventy. That’s what you get with Andreas Johnsen’s occasionally compelling new documentary “Bugs.”
“Bugs” follows chef Ben Reade and Nordic Food Lab researcher Josh Evans as they travel around the world, eating bugs, attempting to determine whether bugs-as-food sustenance has the potential to save humanity from impending doom by population spike. We watch as they eat worms and crickets and wasps and ants and termites and grasshoppers and larvae and mmm… maggot fat. They eat insects raw and alive, they eat them fried, they eat them roasted, they eat them folded into otherwise halfway normal-looking dishes. They eat disgusting arthropods in Denmark, Kenya, Uganda, Japan, Australia, Mexico, Italy and more.
Much of the film is spent rationalizing their dietary actions. “Our goal is to try and make more tasty food available to more people, and to try and learn from these cultures,” says Josh upon his return to Denmark from various third-world, bug-consuming countries. Ben spends a while comparing insects to sushi, saying that “ideas which have provoked disgust in the past, have really turned around very very quickly.” After chowing down on the most repulsive worm I’ve ever laid eyes on, Ben exclaims, “it has a macadamia kind of vibe. I’m digging it!” The conversation the film seems to be having with its audience goes something like this:
“Ben & Josh:” Would you, could you, eat a bug? Would you, could you, eat a slug?
Audience: We could not, would not, eat a bug. We could not, would not, eat a slug.
“Ben & Josh:” I found some slugs down in that lake! Would you like them in a cake?
Audience: We do not like your slugs from lakes. We do not like them baked in cakes.
“Ben & Josh:” I just made some cricket stew! Would you like to eat some too?
Audience: We don’t want your cricket stew — eating that would make us spew.
The main idea here is mainstreaming the eating of insects in The West could be the solution to an enormous problem. Their theory is: an ongoing massive population spike must be accommodated by a commensurate spike in food production and availability to prevent mass starvation. As the film progresses, Ben and Josh begin to contemplate what the process of bringing edible insects to the States and the U.K. would actually look like, and realize that in the event of an edible-insect revolution, insect harvesting will become a money-making machine for large, industrial food corporations just like any other popular source of essential nutrients. They become terrified, to the point of stagnation, of helping to make a “very small amount of people a very large amount of money. (I imagine the scenario they’re envisioning is a bit like the most memorable reveal in “Snowpiercer” — you know the one.)
“Bugs” is at its best when the two guys at its center are traversing the Earth, sampling weird and disgusting food items like maggot cheese or grasshopper ravioli. It’s weirdly exhilarating to watch as they eat live ants and hunt insane Japanese wasps and try and present insect-based food in non-vomitous fashion (they fail. A bit of garnish does not negate the fact that a cockroach on a plate is still very much a goddamn cockroach on a plate). The first two thirds of “Bugs” have a sort of slightly less opportunistic Morgan Spurlock vibe to it; an air of glib fun as well as a non-Spurlockian genuine curiosity and earnest drive to do good. However, when the subjects leap right over the much more fascinating dilemma of how to market insect-eating to Westerners, instead choosing to worry about the consequences of the Capitalist West hypothetically adopting insect-eating, the film grinds to a boring halt. Who wants to watch chef Ben Reades moodily contemplate the ethics of hypothetical industrial insect production?
Going into “Bugs,” my concern was that it would be a dull, academic piece about the hidden nutritional and environmental potential in insects as a food source full of talking heads from doctors in labcoats, and graphs, and numbers; all of those uninspired documentary conventions. Yet “Bugs” begins as a stimulating human exploration of varied cultures and differing culinary norms around the world, full of distinct, visceral imagery and reasonably compelling ideas. It’s deeply unfortunate then in its final act, “Bugs” turns into a tedious lesson about sustainability.
There’s a decent amount to enjoy in “Bugs.” Not to mention the film’s incredibly appealing, succinct running time. Still, it lacks cohesion in its philosophy as well as its intent. Its biggest failure, however, is its inability to convince its audience that bugs could turn out to be a nice, light snack. [B-]
