Mondovino
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Movie Reviews of Mondovino
Movie Review: McWine
Summary: 5 Stars
If Rolland-Parker have, in leveling the playing field (Parker's phrase), made all "exceptional" wine taste the same, why care where it comes from? What is the purpose of a label except to justify one bottle selling for 100+ euros? I understand supply and demand but nothing you rent should cost that much. When will they dispense with the pretense of corks and start using screw caps?
Some day we will distinguish where we are in the world only by a few remaining landmarks left standing to add local color. Everything else will be of uniform. Several years ago I stood outside one of the gates at Canterbury and turned to see three Starbucks. I felt as if I were part of a Lewis Black monologue. Go to the antipodes and you will hear the same music, eat the same food, drink the same soft drinks, and see the "natives" wearing the same t-shirts. You won't have to leave home. This movie is about one aspect of the growing sameness of life.
I stopped drinking wine when I needed a home equity loan to buy a bottle, but I understand the frustration of wine growers who can't make a go of it because their stuff doesn't measure up to an admittedly (by both Rolland and Parker) personal palate. Does the attachment of a number to a subjective assessment make it objective? I don't think so. At some point in this film someone declares he would rather drink wine that is not so good but that reflects where it came from than a standardized wine. Me too.
There is a strong element of politics in Mondovino, although political systems are really being supplanted by mercantilism. Rolland suggests as much when he points to his client vineyards on a world map and jokes about the Moon and Michael Mondavi when he dreams of vines on Mars. Please, leave it to the Lunatics and the Martians.
Watch Mondovino on a large screen if you can. My TV isn't small but between the unsteady camera work, subtitles (you have to admire a guy who can speak so many languages competently), and other print information flashed on the screen, I felt as if my eyes would drop out, like a pair of joke spectacles. And yes, watch all the dogs and the laborers.
Movie Review: Epic Documentary about the Loss of Wine's Original Purpose
Summary: 5 Stars
In this sprawling two-hour-plus documentary in which there is no narration, we see charming, sympathetic, sometimes cranky old French and Italian men who talk about the origins of wine as being religious and spiritual with each region linked to a specific taste, flavor, and character of wine. These old wine makers look on with foreboding doom and disgust at the new global wine makers who, catering to Americans' infantile tastes ("easy to drink wines") and who favor oak to "terroir"(the earthy tastes in many French wines)are changing the way wines are made forever. It seems the small wineries are being bought out by the big corporations, synthetic methods are used, everyone is creating a McDonalds Bic Mac wine that is predictable, doesn't need ageing, and caters to wine critic Robert Parker's personal tastes and biases (he loves the big California wines so the Europeans are emulating that model.)
The profiles of philistines, vulgarians, and other avaricious types are remarkable in that the director just let's them talk and reveal themselves. They are really like caricatures of villians in action films. To hear one wealthy family transplanted to Argentina talk about the indigenous people as being lazy for example is almost too much to bear.
The most touching part of the film is the relationship between an ageing curmudgeon wine maker, fully of witty philosophical quips, and his daughter who shares his sensibility. She tells her father she is quitting the big winery she is working at because it has sold out. Her brother, who has business leanings, seems hell-bent on ruining his father's legacy. This triangle between father and his daughter and son is what rises this film to the level of a truly excellent documentary.
One last bit of praise. The director, who interviews his subjects in the film, seems fluent in many languages: French, Italian, Spanish, and so on. Being able to speak his subjects' language gave him more access and this helped the film immensely.
Movie Review: An extraordinary character study and expose
Summary: 5 Stars
It is hard to imagine that a documentary with such elemental production values, shot in jerky handycam style, could be such an incisive, touching, and powerful examination of the wine industry and its personae. But it is.
The story is of the nobility, the megapolists, the honest and stubborn traditionalists, and the tiny producers on the very margins of the industry. The culture of wine production, the interplay between producers, critics, and consultants is exposed in vivid detail. What emerges is the story of mega wine companies who, in loose alliance with some dominant American wine critics (who come across as alternately earnest and self-important fools), dominate the industry, not only in sales, but in practice--replacing traditional methods with newer Americanized ones, and in the dominance of a particular consultant, who spreads the same taste over the globe, homogenizing wines at the expense of uniqueness.
The heroes are the little guys: the small wine producers, the Mexican laborers, the tiny vineyards in Brazil and Argentina, and the traditionalists in Britain, France and Italy. The villains are the vapid and self-absorbed Staglins, the good cop-bad cop, bearded-clean shaven Mondavis, the MBA-speak infected French wine CEOs, the Quiet American naivete of Robert Parker and the Ugly American arrogance of Jonathan Suckling, and the oleaginous Michel Rolland, wine homogenizer to the stars. Micro-oxygenate!
This film has all the right values and will be loved and hated by all the right people. Coming from a background in a parallel industry, the portraits rang true. Enthusiastically recommended.
Movie Review: Wealth of insight into the current wine biz
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not sure why there are so many negative reviews, especially from people who claim they are wine collectors or wine lovers. I am a wine lover and I happen to work in the wine industry. Yes, the camera work is a bit shakey but I happen to think that the camreaman zooming in on a dog or other object now and then can be a little more interesting than a 2 minute shot of someone talking. Yes, the director is obviously biased against the Mondavis, Gallos and KJs of the world. Yes, he does ask some pointless, antagonistic questions and does take some cheap shots. However, listening to the Mondavis, Mothilie, deVillaine, Rolland, Braodbent or Parker talk is hugely insightful. There is so much insight from both camps...any real lover of wine will take quite a bit away from this movie. The filmmaker does a good job of showing that there are many people in the wine industry who are much more attracted to the glitz and glamour of the biz than they are attracted to the wine (a great example is the ex-CEO & wife who create a Tuscan villa in Napa, as well as the [...] who leads tours at Mondavi). All in all, this is a highly informative movie that will educate and enlighten anyone who is interested in the wine biz. I watched all the outtakes and still would have liked the movie to be longer...there must have been so many good interviews left on the cutting room floor.Movie Review: No plonk, this
Summary: 5 Stars
Mondo Vino lives up to most, if perhaps not all, the praise it has received. Nossiter's range is remarkable, and he brings both talent and passion to the project. Much has already been said in previous reviews with which I agree. Certainly, for anyone interested in wine, I recommend the film highly, but it reaches far beyond that specialized audience.
Where one may find fault is in the overall polemical tone of the work. True, Nossiter doesn't editorialize in his own voice. He lets his villains hoist themselves by their own petards, and it can be revealing and entertaining to watch. But he is clearly out to make a point. He does this with great success, and I salute the achievement. But something is lost, artistically and philosophically, in such point-making. It could have been a great documentary; but it is still a very good one.