Photo: PlayBack
Documentaries about chefs, showcasing their creativity, their determination, and their unique contributions to the culinary world have multiplied in the past few years, to the point that they have become a subgenre of food films, both on the silver screen and on TV.
Documentaries have enriched the already booming fiction in the food film genre (together with TV series and even manga animation). They seem to borrow many of the themes and the styles that often go under the name of “food porn,” a set of visual and auditory strategies—shots, camera movements, lighting, sound, and editing—that aim to satisfy viewers excluded from the actual consumption of food represented onscreen. Graphic, acoustic, and narrative components reproduce physical experiences for spectators, often achieving comparable levels of excitement through sensual close-ups of dishes, pans on the stove, and fingers preparing food where the lens focuses on a detail, blurring the rest of the frame.
Filmmakers and documentarists working on food and chefs have fully embraced this aesthetic approach, which underlines the exceptional skills of the artisan, honed by decades of absolute, almost mystical dedication. If on one hand the films are thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining, on the other they tend to become more predictable both in terms of content and visuals.
In his documentary Theater of Life, which should start streaming on Netflix in June, filmmaker Peter Svatek embraces quite a different perspective in recording the initiative launched by famed chef Massimo Bottura, though which he presents a different way to look at food waste and soup kitchens. Chef Bottura has already been the subject of more predictable (although beautiful) documentaries and has even recently appeared in a cameo in the comedy series Master of None. However, Svatek and his collaborators, executive producer Josette Gauthier from Triplex Film and producer Annette Clark from the National Film Board of Canada, turn the expectations about the genre inside out. The core of the film is quite out of the ordinary, as it follows the development of Bottura’s efforts during the 2015 Milan Expo to use the food from the mega-event that would go to waste to create a new model of providing nourishment to the needy. The result is the Refettorio Ambrosiano, an abandoned theater next to a church in a working-class neighborhood in Milan turned into a space where Bottura invited some of the most famous chefs from around the world to get creative and find ways to provide tasty food by taking advantage of what would be otherwise thrown away.
This chef-centric approach to waste, one of the most urgent problems in our food system, would deserve a whole movie in itself, especially because Bottura and his non-profit Food for Life, in which he collaborates with his wife Lara Gilmore, have repeated it successfully in Rio during the 2016 Olympics and more recently in London. While still providing nourishment to the eyes through beautiful cooking scenes, Svatek shifts his focus to the guests of the soup kitchens and their personal stories.
We are introduced to a set of unusual but intriguing characters that share their stories while appreciating meals at the Refettorio: immigrants from other countries, refugees, and Italians, some of them homeless. The camera follows them on the streets of Milan, in shelters, and humble apartments, helping viewers shed any preconceived notions they may have about people experiencing those kinds of hardships. The Refettorio turns into a place of mutual respect and exchange, where famous chefs (mostly unknown to the guests) prepare delicious dishes, some of them at quite a loss when it comes to interacting with their temporary audience. Volunteers serve food to the guests like in a restaurant, avoiding some of the dynamics of soup kitchens and the social stigma that comes with it.
In Theater of Life, food is not only a pleasure to covet, but also sustenance and consolation. As awesome as they may be, the featured chefs are not the only stars; the less glamorous aspects of food, its distribution, and its preparation take center stage together with the guests. Food’s power to bring people together and provide some comfort, as temporary and not devoid of contradictions as it may be, is highlighted. We can only hope this documentary marks the beginning of a new season for food films.