Quick review of the last two films yesterday, which oddly had a vaguely similar theme, summed up by a quote “there are some things words cannot teach” although I can’t remember which film it was literally from, as it applied to both… First up was Jiro Dreams of Sushi – a beautiful doco that any sushi-lover should see. It made me homesick for Japan and also reminded me of a friend raving about the best Japanese restaurant ever… in Los Angeles… I didn’t say anything, but I think he should spend some time in Japan before making that proclamation (although eating Jiro’s sushi requires booking ahead by six months or more) as its no coincidence that the highly regarded Michelin Guide to the best restaurants in the world crowned Tokyo the mostly highly awarded city, with 150 restaurants receiving at least one star (Paris & London have 148) and the highest award of three stars has been assigned to Jiro and his tiny ten seat sushi restaurant. Here’s the trailer:
Some of the best moments in the doco are when someone who knows Jiro well is being interviewed, and Jiro is sitting in the background, out of focus – the timing of his smile when someone nails him with a comment says as much as the subtitles do, if not more… But what a fascinating documentary! I’ve always believed there is no bad sushi, simply because you do not eat it if it isn’t excellent. There is one fast food-like sushi franchise in Wellington that I tried once, and never again. Apart from anything else their rice just tasted wrong. A year or two later I met someone who had worked for them briefly, who told me they put sugar in their rice. SUGAR!? There is nothing more loathsome than attempted westernization of cultural delicacies, don’t get me wrong – the franchise is not owned or operated by Japanese. But it makes me sad to think that people eat that sushi thinking it is any way authentic.. What next McSushi burgers?
The illusion, like many art forms with minimalist origins, is that sushi is easy to make and this documentary provided a hint at the many hidden rituals & practices in creating such astonishingly delicious food. A few examples, Jiro has a rice dealer who provides only his restaurant with the certain kind of rice that he likes and it is cooked via a highly evolved process and under high pressure. One of Jiros apprentices comments about how sushi rice is not meant to be served cold, it should be body temperature. They also mention various processes for aging and marinating different varieties of fish, processes that Jiro has evolved over his 70+ years of working, as well as introduce us to the many specialists who each provide their chosen genre of fish for his consideration. And the description of Jiro’s menu, conceived and prepared akin to a composer preparing a concert left me dreaming of having the budget & ability to plan my visit with the required foresight to experience it. When, not if…
The last film of the NZ Film Festival that I saw was Wim Wenders 3D film Pina, about Pina Bausch. Wenders: “No, there was no hurricane that swept across the stage, there were just… people performing, who moved differently then I knew and who moved me as I had never been moved before. After only a few moments I had a lump in my throat, and after a few minutes of unbelieving amazement I simply let go of my feelings and cried unrestrainedly. This had never happened to me before… maybe in life, sometimes in the cinema, but not when watching a rehearsed production, let alone choreography….”
Check out the trailer but appreciate that it evokes about 5% of the experience of the actual film:
Pina Bausch died in the summer of 2009 and this is as loving a tribute to an artist as I have ever seen, especially because it is an ensemble tribute. The staging & performances in the film are astonishing, but it is the emotional truth required of each member that is the most fascinating and revealing… And to capture that on film must have been an incredible challenge, Wenders: “We recorded the four dance pieces live, during sold-out performances. Therefore, we could not interfere with or disturb the dancers on stage. Yet we wanted the 3D rig as close as possible to them. The use of a long, telescopic crane gave us this possibility. Of course, the dancers had some initial qualms about a giant eye dancing with them on the stage, but this soon evaporated.”
Some of his other comments about shooting 3D are fascinating: “3D limits the choice of focal length; wide-angle lenses cause distortion, while long focal lenses creates a silhouette effect. Extensive tests led us to three lenses: DigiPrimes with focal lengths of 10mm, 14mm and 20mm. Since changing the lenses in a 3D rig is time-consuming – and we had little time to spare – the focal length for each scene needed to be clearly established before shooting began.”
Someone who saw the film in 2D asked what was the main application/use of 3D, which Wenders also answers himself: “3D loves depth – that’s why the solos of the dancers outside the theatre space are a perfect complement to the dance performances on stage. These spectacular scenes were shot in striking locations throughout Wuppertal and its surrounding areas: streets, forests, mountain slopes, industrial landscapes, and of course on the Wuppertal Suspended Monorail.” – I could have watched the point of view shots from the front of the monorail for ages, it was so gentle, incredibly smooth and enjoyable to watch, as were all of the exterior shoots, and those aren’t words often associated with 3D footage. One last comment on the use of 3D, there is a great scene that is first set up with two of the cast examining a scale model of the stage and set, in a park, and their scale as well as the perceived depth of the tiny stage is intriguing. But once its been set up, and we then see some of the actual performance from the real stage, the same shot is revisited in the park, but this time with tiny little human dancers performing on the stage, being watched by the same two giants, and its a beautiful visual metaphor for Pinas permanent presence in the lives of these performers…
Lastly I have to comment on the foley, which was beautifully performed & mixed. Of course we can never know how much was also production sound, but without it ever feeling overt I really felt foley contributed hugely to this film. Great work Carsten & Hanse!
Original Music by Thom (as Thom Hanreich)
Benjamin Bober – boom operator
Ivan Dumas – boom operator
André Rigaut – sound recordist
Eric Horstmann – re-recording stage engineer
Alexander Buck – sound designer
Matthias Lempert – sound re-recording mixer
Carsten Richter – foley artist
Hanse Warns – foley mixer
Between Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders it feels like the creative scope of 3D has been expanded, and it’s interesting to think that both of these films would have been made for less than the coffee budget at WETA for the vast team who worked on Avatar….
