Frederick Wiseman's latest is a four hour investigation of the titled Michelin 3 star restaurant in France. It's a look at the the people and farms that help make it run.
Wiseman's films are not for everyone. Some people don't like the observational style. People either turn off at the the lack of "action" or the fact that Wiseman doesn't judge, he just shows us life and lets us observe. You have to want to people watch and do so in "real" time. Recently Hubert Vigilla and myself had a discussion about Wiseman's films as to what ones worked and what didn't.
Here you need to have to want to see what goes into the running of a restaurant, beyond just cooking the meals, since this isn't about food any more than Wiseman's earlier CRAZY HORSE is about the nude female dancers.
For me this is a middle of the road Wiseman film. While definitely up to the master's high standards, the film didn't quite click with me (hence the brevity of this review). Blame the fact that the film mirrors a good number of films on restaurants that I see each year. I've seen variations on this any number of time over the last few years so the wonder of seeing anything other than the specifics wasn't there, especially when it runs for so long. Yes the film is good and yes it brings the best of other films' views together, but it never grabbed me because it was too familiar territory.
Definitely worth a look if the subject or the filmmaker interests you, but your mileage may vary.
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