You’ve probably seen those drone shots of industrial farms—endless, geometric grids of corn and soy that look more like a circuit board than a landscape. It’s clean. It’s efficient. It's also deeply unsettling if you stop to think about what was there before the tractors took over. That’s the tension at the heart of the Look and See documentary, a film that doesn't just ask you to watch, but begs you to actually observe the disappearing soul of rural America.
Directed by Laura Dunn and Jef Sewell, and executive produced by heavy hitters like Robert Redford and Terrence Malick, this isn't your standard "food industry is bad" documentary. Honestly, it’s much more of a cinematic poem. It centers on the life and work of Wendell Berry. If you don't know Berry, he’s a novelist, a poet, a farmer, and a bit of a prophet from Henry County, Kentucky. He’s been shouting into the wind about the dangers of industrial agriculture since the 1960s.
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The film changed its name, too. Originally, it toured festivals as The Seer, which felt a bit more mystical. But the shift to Look and See feels right. It’s an invitation. It’s a challenge to look at the dirt, the hands of the people working it, and the massive machines that are slowly making those hands obsolete.
The Ghost of Wendell Berry
What's wild about the Look and See documentary is that Wendell Berry is the star, but you hardly ever see his face. He refused to be filmed in a traditional "talking head" style. Instead, we hear his voice—gravelly, deliberate, and steeped in a kind of mournful wisdom—over footage of the world he’s spent his life defending.
It's a bold choice.
In an era of TikTok and constant visual stimulation, Dunn asks the audience to listen. Berry talks about the "unsettling of America," a phrase he coined in his 1977 book. He’s looking at how we traded community and land stewardship for "efficiency." But at what cost? We see the farmers who are struggling to keep up with the "get big or get out" mentality that has dominated the USDA since the Earl Butz era.
There’s this one sequence that sticks with you. It’s not a chart or a graph. It’s just the sound of a massive combine harvester. The noise is industrial. It’s violent. Contrast that with the quiet of a hand-cranked printing press that Berry uses for his writing. The film basically argues that we are losing our connection to the physical world. When we stop seeing the land as a living thing and start seeing it as a factory floor, we lose a piece of our humanity.
Why This Film Isn't Just for Farmers
You might think, "I live in a city, why should I care about Kentucky tobacco farmers?"
Fair point. But the Look and See documentary hits on something universal. It’s about the scale of our lives.
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We’ve become a society of consumers who have no idea where anything comes from. Berry’s point—and the film’s thesis—is that this disconnection leads to a lack of accountability. If you don't see the soil being depleted, you don't care. If you don't see the farmer losing his family's legacy to a bank, it's just a statistic.
The cinematography by Lee Daniel is staggering. It’s shot with a 35mm feel that captures the texture of the Kentucky landscape. You can almost smell the damp earth and the curing tobacco. This visual richness is meant to counter the "flatness" of modern life. It forces you to slow down. If you’re looking for a fast-paced investigative thriller, this isn't it. It’s a meditation.
The Problem with "Efficiency"
We love that word. Efficiency.
But in the world of the Look and See documentary, efficiency is the villain. One farmer in the film talks about how his grandfather farmed with horses. Then came the small tractor. Then the big tractor. Now, the machines are so large and expensive that the farmer is essentially a servant to the debt required to buy them.
It’s a cycle.
- Buy bigger equipment to farm more land.
- Produce more crops, which drives the price down.
- Profit margins shrink.
- Buy even bigger equipment to farm even more land to make up for the lower prices.
Eventually, the people vanish. Small towns in middle America aren't dying because people "left for the city" in some natural migration. They're dying because the industrial model doesn't need people. It needs operators. And ideally, it wants those operators to be replaced by GPS and AI.
A Different Kind of Environmentalism
Most nature documentaries focus on "the wild"—places where humans don't exist. Berry hates that distinction. To him, the farm is where the human and natural worlds meet. If we can't get the farm right, we aren't going to get the wilderness right either.
The Look and See documentary avoids being a lecture. It doesn't give you a list of "10 things to do." Instead, it tries to change how you feel. It uses wood engravings by Mary Azarian to break up the footage, adding a folk-art aesthetic that feels grounded and ancient. It reminds us that for most of human history, we were tied to the seasons and the soil.
It's a bit depressing, honestly.
Seeing the photos of the people Berry grew up with—faces lined with hard work and a sense of belonging—compared to the hollowed-out main streets of today is a gut punch. But there’s a stubborn hope in it too. The hope is in the "looking." By acknowledging what has been lost, we might start to value what’s left.
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Facing the Critics and the Context
Is the film nostalgic? Yes, absolutely. Some critics argue that Berry’s vision is impractical for a world of 8 billion people. They say we need industrial agriculture to prevent mass starvation.
The documentary doesn't really try to debunk that with data. It counters with a moral argument. It asks: even if we are fed, are we whole? Are we healthy? The film points to the rise of mental health crises in rural areas and the literal poisoning of the water table as evidence that the "efficient" system is actually quite broken.
It’s also worth noting the Malick influence. If you’ve seen The Tree of Life or The Thin Red Line, you’ll recognize the DNA here. Long shots of wind in the grass. A focus on the cosmic significance of small moments. It’s a polarizing style. Some find it pretentious; others find it transcendent. In the context of the Look and See documentary, it serves to elevate the act of farming to something sacred.
How to Actually "Look and See" After Watching
Once the credits roll, you're left with a weird mix of guilt and inspiration. What do you do with that?
The film suggests that the solution isn't a new law or a different politician, though those might help. The solution is a change in "membership." That’s a Berry word. Being a member of a place means you belong to it as much as it belongs to you.
Actionable Steps for the Modern Viewer
Don't just watch the film and go back to scrolling. If the message resonated, there are small, tactile ways to push back against the "unsettling" Berry describes:
- Find a "Place" to Care For: This doesn't mean buying a 40-acre farm. It could be a community garden plot or even just a backyard. The goal is to observe the life cycles of a specific piece of earth.
- Support the "Small-Scale" Specifically: When you go to a farmer's market, ask about their soil health. Support the people who are trying to farm against the industrial grain. It’s more expensive, but the film argues that "cheap food" has hidden costs that we’re all paying in other ways.
- Read "The Unsettling of America": If the documentary piqued your interest, go to the source. Berry’s prose is even sharper than his narrated poetry. It’s a foundational text for understanding why our rural communities look the way they do.
- Practice Visual Awareness: This sounds "woo-woo," but the film’s title is a literal instruction. Try to spend ten minutes a day looking at something natural without a screen in your hand. Notice the complexity of a tree or the way the light changes. It’s a form of resistance against the digital flattening of our world.
The Look and See documentary is a rare piece of media that doesn't want your clicks or your outrage. It just wants your attention. In 2026, where every second of our lives is monetized and tracked, giving your quiet attention to the land might be the most radical thing you can do. It’s not about going back to the 19th century. It’s about bringing the values of care, stewardship, and community into the 21st.
Ultimately, the film leaves us with a haunting question: If we lose our connection to the earth, what exactly are we supposed to be connected to? The answer provided by the industrial world—screens, debt, and global supply chains—doesn't seem to be making anyone particularly happy. Maybe it's time we actually looked at what we're doing. And then, maybe, we'll finally see it.