1FF Film Club - DOCUMENTARY FILMS

[Craig]

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)
A documentary on 85-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono, his renowned Tokyo restaurant, and his relationship with his son and eventual heir, Yoshikazu.

Still the Enemy Within (2014)
Still the Enemy Within is a unique insight into one of history's most dramatic events: the 1984-85 British Miners' Strike. No experts. No politicians. Thirty years on, this is the raw first-hand experience of those who lived through Britain's longest strike. Follow the highs and lows of that life-changing year.

F for Fake (1974)
A documentary about fraud and fakery.

A Syrian Love Story (2015)
Filmed over 5 years, A Syrian Love Story charts an incredible odyssey to political freedom. For Raghda and Amer, it is a journey of hope, dreams and despair: for the revolution, their homeland and each other.

Five Broken Cameras (2011)
A documentary on a Palestinian farmer's chronicle of his nonviolent resistance to the actions of the Israeli army.

 

[Craig]

This Is What Winning Looks Like (2013)
A documentary about the war in Afghanistan and the transition from US to Afghan army control.

Southern Rites (2015)
One year after the town merges its segregated proms, photographer Gillian Laub documents a divisive murder case in a small Georgia town.

The Gleaners & I (2000)
An intimate, picaresque inquiry into French life as lived by the country's poor and its provident, as well as by the film's own director, Agnes Varda. The aesthetic, political and moral point of departure for Varda are gleaners, those individuals who pick at already-reaped fields for the odd potato, the leftover turnip.

Lessons of Darkness (1992)
This film shows the disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames, with few interviews and no explanatory narration. Hell itself is presented in such beautiful sights and music that one has to be fascinated by it.

HyperNormalisation (2016)
Adam Curtis explains how, at a time of confusing and inexplicable world events, politicians and the people they represent have retreated in to a damaging over-simplified version of what is happening.

 

[johnnytodd]

Rather watch Emerdale.

 

[Craig]

*Emmerdale

 

[Craig]

Deadline for votes of midday today for this.

 

[Craig]

Winner, winner, sushi dinner....

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772925/?ref_=nv_sr_1

https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/jiro-dreams-of-sushi

 

[SALTIRE]

Winner, winner, sushi dinner....

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772925/?ref_=nv_sr_1

https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/jiro-dreams-of-sushi

That is excellent, the pursuit of perfection they show in the film is astonishing.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

WATCHED.

I assumed somewhat blithely that this would be another of those documentaries that looks askance at some subculture that I was superficially familiar with but that for some is a life-consuming obsession (vintage arcade machines, spelling bees, crosswords etc etc). And it kind of ends up being like that, but not exactly in the way I had expected.

It succeeds on that level, as an engaging look at a little slice of the world that I would not have encountered otherwise. Jiro is an interesting and essentially admirable and likeable chap. To have come from nowt and reached his station in life is impressive. To have done so and maintained some sense of humility and self-deprecation and so on, despite having people pour rhapsodies into his ear 24/7, and genuflecting to him as the chief of some austere monk-like caste and a quasi-mythical national folk hero brought to life from the papyrus scrolls of mythology is probably even more praiseworthy. To observe a man singularly devoted to the perfection of an arcane craft and invested in passing that passion onto others is compelling and seductive. Especially in a world in which so many of us (ie me) are debased by spending our days prostituting ourselves in the service of some pointless shit that exists only to make money for some usurious prick or other.

But there was a lot about it that I found unsatisfying. Seductive is the key word. It alludes to a lot thorny ideas, but then fails to follow up on them: The father/sons relationship is deeply odd and, they suggest, quintessentially Japanese. But is it healthy, really? There's a nod towards the ecological impact of industrial scale fishing (ps Pize: trigger warning... scenes of live sea-creatures having a very bad time), but no real pondering of the degree to which we should consider the protagonists or ourselves complicit in that on-going catastrophe. And it is totally besotted with the Cult of Hard Work. Is exquisitely cooked rice really an outcome worth lobbing your 9 year kid out onto the streets for? Is the best raw tuna evs a good trade off for being a stranger to your family and almost dropping dead at a fish market aged 70? Is there a moral dimension to the tale of a bloke who was born arse poor spending decades turning out very expensive and very tiny food for the consumption of the very well heeled? Is having no inner life whatsoever outside of your vocation really the sort of thing we ought to be turning into a platitudinous, meme-worthy self-help credo? Jiro seems genuinely satisfied with his lot (delighted with it, really), so fair does, but as an inspirational figure we could all learn something from, I dunno, and the film doesn't seem to or want to either.

All of which makes it tend towards being an exercise in ostentatious foodie porn, a high class version of summat you could find on a Food TV channel, with added time lapse shots of Tokyo to give it a cinematic alibi...... Cooking as spiritual quest. Kitchen as crucible. Chef as ascetic hero, self-abnegating in the pursuit of not defined, never examined and perpetually deferred concepts of authenticity, purity, perfection. It's the ultimate good-taste lifestyle accessory of our times, innit. Sacrifice and sacrament for those with spare cash and spare time. Whacking some vapid, late period Phillip GLass over the top rather sums it up.

It's probably a bit dumb to criticise a film for not being a different film that half exists in my head, and maybe it's enough that it posits that stuff in the first place. But in the end it's a bit lightweight, and a bit of a missed opportunity.

TLDR: THREE BAGS OF POPCORN AND A 30 MINUTE OCTOPUS MASSAGE