Honestly surprisingly interesting and a very enjoyable watch for me. I mean I'm not going to go out of my way to say it was amazing or anything but this might just be the most actually informative documentary I have ever watched in my lifetime, and definitely the best documentary I have watched so far this year. Before seeing this on Netflix's top ten movies list I had never even heard of it, or really any single thing that was talked about in it, but I am supremely glad that I took the time to sit down and watch it because it was filled with a ton of intriguing science stuff about the body I have never before known, most especially the 'microbiome' which is something I think I might've heard about once or twice before but never in depth, so getting insight from those experienced in the field was incredibly insightful.
The large majority of this documentary is narrated by a woman named Giulia Enders, who is a German practitioner specialized in this field, and the amount of insight she gives into the subject of the microbiome and just the way the human body works in general is super interesting and very impressive. This topic is just a very different way to talk about eating as a whole, and the different ways it can affect different people, and the ways each individual responds to it. This is demonstrated with a group of different people, one being a Japanese competitive eater who no longer has the feeling of being full or hunger, a Michelin star chef who finds it hard to eat without beating herself up for it, a girl who has tried everything to lose weight but nothing seems to work, and a girl who can barely eat anything. All of these different people are so engaging to watch and to understand how and why their bodies react to food in different ways is so enticing, and I really enjoyed learning about both them, and the way they interact with what they eat. The human body is such a strange thing and the fact we all react differently to things makes it even more compelling yet complicated to understand.
However; even though I think the actual human aspect of this documentary and just getting the ability to hear about all these different people's experiences and the understanding of their own personal microbiome and what they can do to help make the changes they desire - I would have to say that the best part about this short documentary is not any of that, but instead the really fun way it's portrayed nearly half of the time. This thing has some of the most visually appealing sequences I have ever laid eyes upon. It's done in such an endearing way that I was genuinely glued to the screen nearly the entire time, a large majority of it is done in differing art forms, my favorite of all of course being the adorable stop motion that appears at times - although; there is also 3D animation and 2D animation in here as well. It all really blended together well and made for such a visually engaging watch that I liked it more than enough just for that, and I am so very tempted to give it a four star rating.
This isn't a masterpiece by any means but it is a very good educational time, and that's really all I can ask for when it comes to a documentary, plus it's just overall a pretty enjoyable watch that never feels dull or like it drags on. With a brisk run time that only lasts about over an hour, and a whole lot of enlightening information that I am very glad to have learned about, I am more than pleased to have sat down to watch this and I obviously recommend everyone else does the same. It's a very standard documentary a lot of the time but it also has a lot of new and unique elements to it that make it an immensely entertaining watch, and it also just provides a whole lot of interesting information that I don't think a lot of people know. Watch it if you have Netflix, it's definitely worth it.
