Seeing Through the Fence: a documentary by Porch Life Productions

Eleni Vlachos (aka Eleni Binge) went vegan in the early 2000s. As she describes it, like most new vegans she was eager to advance her cause. She noticed, though, that many actions vegans take don’t get through to omnivores and in fact tend to turn them off. She wondered if there were other ways to get the conversation going. So she started talking. And listening.

The result is a documentary filmed on Eleni’s small home camcorder, featuring many of her own Greek relatives (both in the U.S. and in Greece) as well as strangers on the street, that explores how meateaters think about meat, about vegans, and about animals. It also includes vegans talking about their choices. Eleni’s affection for her own relatives and her easy-going attitude toward all makes it possible to hear honest, warm responses from thoughtful omnivores as well as to see an interesting range of those oddballs we call “vegans.” As an extra treat we hear from a former slaughterhouse worker whose thoughts are especially compelling.

I had the opportunity to see this film in its 60-minute version (there is a longer as well as a couple of shorter versions available) and to speak with Eleni, when she screened the documentary in a classroom in San Luis Obispo, home of the agriculture-centered Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Eleni’s husband, me, Eleni, Peggy and Erika (Peggy, Erika and I are members of the Central Coast Vegetarian Meetup group)

The film is bare-bones in its production quality and editing. The camera Eleni used may well have relaxed her interviewees but it isn’t much for low-light situations. Thus there are grainy, washed-out images along with the presentable clear outdoors pieces. The sound is uneven, but Eleni had the sense to transcribe the conversations that were more difficult to understand. The editing is inventive but clearly an amateur production. It’s easy to see that a lot of work went into it. It’s also easy to see that Eleni, as she freely admits, learned on the job.

Actually, these qualities make it rather easy to warm up to the film, regardless of content. We can relate to Eleni and her quest and we can imagine taking our own cameras out.

But clearly content is king. And in this arena Eleni’s work shines. In her interviews with vegans and omnivores she follows a path, from the simple questions about what people eat to the harder ones about how people feel about the abuses of factory farming. The interviewees seem open and willing to think about their choices and to provide answers from their hearts as well as their minds. More, Eleni is not afraid to use humor in her voice-overs describing her encounters as well as in the answers she gets from others.

Mixed into the interviews is footage of factory farm animals from various sources (usually obtained undercover). The inserts, while disturbing, are kept short and intertwined in such a way as to allow the viewer time to absorb it all.

Eleni’s comfortable, non-judgmental approach, coupled with her natural self-deprecating sense of humor (it reminded me of Ellen Degeneres), gives the film a quality usually absent from films on the serious subject of the ethics of what we eat. It means she isn’t just preaching to the choir, also, as many meat-eaters have attested after watching the film.

Eleni and her husband form the band Beloved Binge, what they describe as “pop-rock alternative”. They are well into a planned year of touring with both the band and the film, and thousands of leaflets from Vegan Outreach. Visit their website to find out more about the film, the band, and how to get them to your place (if possible) for a screening.

Sections: Vegan Activism, Vegan Et Cetera, Vegan News, Vegan Theory
Topics: documentary, movie, seeing through the fence, veg, Vegan