How a God-fearing Jewish woman found atheism – and bacon – in her later years

Razie Brownstone, 90, grew up with strict Jewish parents and a fear-mongering rabbi who told stories about sin and punishment to encourage good behaviour and instil a lifelong fear of God. In the acclaimed short documentary Bacon and God’s Wrath, Razie reflects on an adult life well lived, and especially her journey to becoming ‘an infidel’ in her later years with some help from ‘the Google’. The Canadian filmmaker Sol Friedman deploys some creative filmmaking techniques – including bringing animated life to the head of a pig’s carcass – to explore Razie’s complicated relationship with religion, and how she ultimately reached the conclusion that ‘faith is belief without evidence’. The film comes to a delicious climax with Razie trying bacon, a food forbidden to kosher Jews, for the first time in her life.