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Posts tagged ‘film’

A Distinct Lack of Seasoning
by Joel LeVangia

Through no fault of anybody’s except really my own, I happen to know more about how difficult it is to make a film than the average person.  As a result, I am generally less inclined to give filmmakers a hard time.  Especially when they did as good of a job as the creators of the new film Tasting Menu with the lighting, and the shot selection, and the camera work; and successfully managing costs and shooting schedule with one totally dominant location that did nothing to detract from the film.

Unfortunately, I am unable to forgive people who go through all of that effort and trouble with great technical skill – when they ultimately have nothing to say.  Much better to have applied their talents to a documentary highlighting the inspiration of the film in all of its glory – Ferran Adria’s El Bulli – than to take a cardboard version of “Love, Actually” and superimpose it on a lightly fictionalized molecular-gastronomy-temple-by-the-sea locale. 

The conceit that there need be no conceit has been the downfall of many a filmmaker.  I’d much rather have the Coen brothers, Barry Sonnenfeld, Barry Sonnenfeld’s camera, and a ton of free time – than the sophisticated crew and beautiful location that Tasting Menu offers me.

It’s not fair, in the absence of decent writing, to criticize the actors.  So, I will single out those character-creators who – like chefs in a cooking show vending machine ingredient challenge – were able to make something tasteful out of nothing.  Those would be Stephen Rea (a diner), Vicenta N’Dongo (the chef), Togo Igawa and Akihiko Serikawa (the Japanese investors), and the “annoying chick” who shepherded the Japanese guys, the pediatrician, and more or less the maître ‘d. (The annoying chick who shepherded the Japanese guys, you would think, would not make this list, but she did a very hard thing – which is to be endearing and charming while being the annoying chick shepherding some Japanese guys. Her name is Marta Torné. She was great. Nice job, Marta.)

I can say this – for those people to whom El Bulli is the ultimate Grateful Dead concert opened by Phish and MC’d by Timothy Leary – this movie could have represented some certain food-centric nerd-appeal. But, incongruously, Tasting Menu gives short shrift to the food.  The actors say “That’s amazing,” after they slurp their aloe-leaf margarita, but you don’t get the full geek-out that would bloom repeatedly during a night at El Bulli or El Celler de Can Roca, whose equally talented chefs consulted on the film.  There is no scene in which the chef drops her welding mask to protect her eyes as she caramelizes a spiderweb.  At no point does anybody run out of plutonium for the flux-capacitor, thereby dramatizing the impossibility of actually enjoying the same bite twice.  Which, you know, is something you can do in movies. Almost even more so than Ferran Adria or the Roca brothers can in real life.

Look.  I respect these guys who made this movie.  I like what they wanted to do, I like the way they did it, and they’re clearly better at it than I am.  However, they did not take the time to marry their backdrop to their storyline on a molecular level. And that, frankly, is what the movie is about – taking the time to arduously create a ridiculously complex, yet simple thing that leaves a lasting impression.  They sure talked around it, but they couldn’t serve it up.

(The film opens in theaters this weekend. Photos: scenes from TASTING MENU, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.)

Somm: A Review

by Joel LeVangia

A good documentary chooses an interesting subject, explicates it in an accessible way, and subjects the informative material to a time pressure or human element for dramatic effect.  Somm does this.  In fact, it does several things very well, and any defects (like say, the repetitive and sophomoric destruction of filled wine glasses) are easily overlooked.

The interesting subject at issue is the world of wine and the wine geeks who love it.  Now, wine geekery has the ability to be intensely annoying.  We’ve all been to Napa and heard the following breathlessly intoned “It’s like a foggy London night with hints of raspberry and woodsmoke,” or “Try to imagine yourself in a Venetian gondola with unctuous gobbets of lamb fat drizzling onto a fire.” And if we haven’t, we can certainly go there and some pretentious 23-year-old will be passing this off on middle aged tourists in acid-wash jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers, who are just trying to get drunk.  Those people deserve each other.

Somm, directed by Jason Wise, has a little bit of both that 23-year-old and that sneakered philistine in it, but at its best, it bridges the incomprehensible gap between “medium, medium plus body, floral bouquet, slight oak, and melon rind,” and “I think we’re supposed to have white with fish.”  There is a basis for both of the preceding statements, and Somm hints at the reason for the divide as it describes the incredibly rigorous and voluminous study that must be undertaken to earn the title of Master Sommelier.

There is a great moment in the film when an advanced sommelier named Margaux Pierog says, “Start licking rocks, you’ve never done that? Just understand what that is,” at one point laughing at herself for how ridiculous it sounds. That statement however, is what separates the wheat from the chaff, the metaphor-spouters in tasting rooms from those analytical freaks who really want to grind down into the wine grid and be able to express verbally what is going on chemically in a given vintage.

It is those people, who have taken on the impossible task of translating an arbitrary set of molecular sequences and signifying them with another arbitrary set of metaphorical phrases (at one point in the film, “cat pee” is revealed to be euphemized as “black currant”) who provide the drama as they study for their medical boards/bar exam/NFL combine.  Who, if anyone, is going to pass the exam?  I found the answers surprising and my concern for the fate of the subjects grew as the story unfolded. 

I would recommend this movie to anyone who is bothered by the fact that they don’t know very much about wine.  People who know vaguely which color goes with which class of food will be pleased to see how much work is done by the restaurant employees (none of them master sommeliers) who are tasked with helping them make their wine selection.  Wine can be a lot of fun as long as you don’t decide it’s all a lot of b.s., and Somm does a good job of demonstrating how it isn’t.

Somm opens nationwide in select theaters this weekend. It is also available on iTunes.

(Photo: DLynn Proctor, Eric Railsback, Dustin Wilson, Brian McClintic and Ian Cauble in SOMM by Forgotten Man Films / Samuel Goldwyn Films)