The 'full-flowing stomach': unwholesome food, climate, and colonialism in King Lear and Kristian Levring's The King is Alive.

This article analyzes Kristian Levring’s 2000 film *The King is Alive*, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s *King Lear*, through a radically open historicist methodology that incorporates multiple interleaved archives spanning the early modern period, colonial history, and contemporary climate concerns. Filmed in an abandoned German mining colony in Namibia, the film foregrounds themes of unwholesome food and scarcity—symbolized by deteriorating canned carrots—and links these to the legacies of Western imperialism, colonial violence, and global capitalism. The article argues that the film’s setting and use of Shakespeare’s text reveal tensions between nostalgic colonialist adaptations and the necessity of engaging with local histories and environmental realities, ultimately suggesting that embracing hyperlocal foodways and historical awareness may offer critical insights for adapting to climate change and postcolonial futures.