Uncouth Reflections

Paleo Retiree writes:

This film (which recently appeared on Netflix Instant) isn’t an informative, clear, traditional documentary. It isn’t an expressive cine-essay, like “Sans Soleil” or “Be Here to Love Me,” either. Instead, it’s an impressionistic, reverential, dark thing — almost a mood piece — about several seasons at a brewery in the northern part of Japan where sake is made in the old way, with lots of hands-on crafting and fussing. Basically, you’re hanging out at a brewery with a small sake-making crew while the filmmaking team does what, back in film school, we used to call “pot-shooting” — recording a lot of near-random this and that.

The sake makers (they’re all guys) wear white uniforms; they polish the rice; they rush around attending to emergencies; they haul bags of rice and pieces of equipment from room to room … It turns out that traditional sake-making is a 24 hour a day job for six months, followed by six months off. So we also hang with the guys as they bathe, share meals, and horse around together during down hours.

There are some attempts to isolate a few story lines and highlight some of the individuals: a few scenes with guys back at their houses, with their families, during the off months, as well as some talks with the brewery’s old brewmaster about his sake-making philosophy, and some time with the young man who’s going to inherit the brewery. He hopes to be able to keep the business going in the face of a lot of industrial-style competition and a decreasing interest in sake on the part of Japanese consumers. But, seriously: the film is mainly a lot of moody shots and sounds. Most of the time I had zero idea why I was being shown what I was being shown.

The film is also oppressively, almost bizarrely, solemn. It’s obviously meant as a tribute to artisanal-style craftsmanship (especially of a meticulous, ultra-Japanesey sort), and — speaking as a locavore/Paleo-eating/farmers-market-shopping kinda guy, as well as a sake-lover — I can totally get on board with that. But what this intention translates into in practice is endless turgid, hyper-closeup shots of guys staring at measuring instruments, examining rice, and sniffing mash. (What are they looking for? We’re never told. We’re watching them do things — but what? And why?) The tone is in fact so heavy that it’s almost Bresson-like in its gloomy, austere religiosity. Let’s just say that, for reasons I certainly couldn’t figure out, the filmmakers go very light on the joy of creativity, as well as on the sensuality of pleasure.

Sourpuss verdict: Childish in its ideas about how to be a documentary (it’s one big montage, basically); uninformative about its overt topic; but impressively super-sophisticated and up-to-date where technical filmmaking stuff goes. Lordy, the lustrous imagery! The ripe and precise sounds!

My wife wanted to stop watching early on but I got perversely fascinated by the film. I fought sleep and annoyance, and we took three evenings to make it through the movie. But I also found myself feeling curious, and wondering if this is the new style, one we’ll be seeing more and more of as youngsters who grew up on digital media (and who seem to have zero background in the traditional arts) continue transforming movies into something that suits them.

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