Mondovino

I was expecting a lot from this movie, and I can say I haven't been disappointed. First of all, this movie, as a world tour of wine making, let the spectator enjoy beautiful places. The people interviewed are really interesting and funny too, in particular Hubert de Montille. The shooting may be confusing, the camera always being unsteady and often focusing on secondary elements in the backgrounds. You may not like it, but I don't consider it as a defect.

The themes raised in the movie may be kind of confusing as well, since globalization isn't the only issue discussed. But Nossiter managed to give his movie a consistency all along. A great achievement of this movie is revealing all the characters involved in the wine industry as they really are, avoiding a cliché "Good against Evil". This could be the main difference between "Mondovino" and Michael Moore's documentaries; Nossiter's point of view appears in a subtle way, through opinions expressed by his favorite characters. The richness of this documentary relies mainly upon the characters, the history of long-time wine-making families, such as the De Montilles, the Mondavis, the Antinori and the Frescobaldi. Nossiter lets the spectator discover that wine is somehow related to families, rather than just being a business and an industry. This movie doesn't make you want to drink wine, but certainly make you want to discover vineyards and wine-makers.

I watched this movie as a student in Enology, and let's just there are many ways to learn. I give this documentary 10 out of 10, despite his technical particularities.

Mondovino is a dense, rich, and complex documentary on the power struggles and major players of the "wine world" elite. It depicts the endless struggle of the old world versus the new global capitalist order. On one hand we have the older, aging, independent grape-growers and wine makers of Burgundy and Tuscany. They have a philosophy of wine as a symbol of civilization. It's not simply a commodity to them. The production and consumption of wine is a religious experience between man and the earth.

On the other side of the "war" are the major wine-producing conglomerates, such as the Mondavi family of Napa Valley or the producers of Ornelliai wine in Italy. No, these aren't bad people. They simply have a different philosophy on wine production, and they eagerly embrace the new technologies and innovations in wine fermentation, such as the "New Oak" barrels that speed up production. They also hire Michel Rollan, a world-famous "wine consultant," who tells people how they can better the quality of their wine through different production processes. But the smaller, more independent wineries see "wine consultants" as harmful to diversity, because they worry that consultants seek to make all wine the same. Just because one consultant likes or doesn't like a wine, does not mean that every pallet will agree.

Mondovino also shows the dark histories of many of the world's most powerful wine producers. Some of the most successful wine makers in France collaborated with Nazi Germany in World War II, and most of the major wine producers in Italy supported Fascism and Mussolini. There are still racist and elitist undertones in much of the wine world today. Mondovino carefully weaves together the web of land, power, politics, and wine.

This film is a lot a great bottle of wine. It's complex, multifaceted, and can't be rushed. I'm not going to lie -- Mondovino is not a short movie. It's over two hours long. But like a great wine gets better with age, so to does this movie get better as time progresses.

If you've ever wanted to know more about wine and the people who make it, this film is a great resource to learn from. "Wine people" are going to love it. But for the average Joe who just wants a good time at the theater, this probably is not the best selection for him. It's not entertaining as much as it's educational, and if you're not in the mood, you're not going to feel it. Just like how you can't enjoy a savory glass of Pinot Noir if all you want is a beer.

I saw this at the London Film Festival last night, apparently the shorter version. James McNally's summary of the content of the film is very good. Nossiter very deftly blends his investigation of the wine business into wider concerns about globalisation, homogenisation, the effect of the mass media, the power of capital and the need for diversity.

The film is shot on hand-held DV which some might find offputting, but which does enable Nossiter to catch people off guard on a number of occasions which probably would not have been possible using more conventional equipment.

Despite the sprawling feel of the film, the editing is very sharp, not only giving us a parade of the world's dogs, but also undercutting a number of interviewees' comments with somewhat contradictory visual images, and giving others sufficient rope to hang themselves. To a degree this evoked Michael Moore's recent work (although Nossiter operates in a more subtle way), but probably the roots of the film go back to Marcel Ophuls' "The Sorrow and the Pity", both in the way the film is constructed and in the emergence of 'salt of the earth' French peasants as the stars. De Montille pere et fils were present at the LFF screening and answered questions afterwards. We do indeed all need a little disorder - bravo Hubert!

Overall an excellent film with implications that go way beyond the world of wine into the way we construct ourselves as people, and organise our world.

A very interesting documentary - certainly a lot more than Sideways, a pseudo wino drama - where the capitalist conspiracy is revealed in all its greed. According to the documentary - and confirmed by the recent publication of a biography on Parker - only two men dictate the nature of wines in the world: Robert Parker of Massachussets and Michel Rolland, a French wine industry expert based in Bordeaux and also known as a "flying winemaker". The director is clever enough to insert interviews of local wine producers from many different regions of France, from Sicily to Argentina and interviews of the biggest players in the industry such as the Mondavi family to uncover the wraps on the globalization of wine making and marketing. A must see for anyone interested in the dark side of the industry. Drinking a glass of wine will not be the same political and commercial act after watching this well made documentray.

I saw this film at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival. Since I work in the wine business, I had been quite eager to see this documentary, and I wasn't disappointed. Reportedly drawn from over 500 hours of footage, the good news is that Nossiter will be releasing not only a theatrical cut, but a ten-part, ten hour series of the film on DVD by next Christmas (ThinkFilm is distributing it). The bad news is that it's still a bit of an unwieldy beast. When it was shown in Cannes, it was close to three hours long. For Toronto, he's cut about half an hour but it still clocked in at 135 minutes. Now, for me, that's fine. I love wine and I love hearing about the controversies raging in my business. But not everyone wants that much.

Nossiter flits around the globe, from Brazil to France to California to Italy to Argentina, talking to wine makers and PR people and consultants and critics about the state of the wine world. The theme that emerges is that globalization and the undue influence of wine critic Robert Parker are forcing a kind of sameness on wine. Small local producers are either being bought up by larger conglomerates (American as well as local), or are being pressured by market forces to change their wines to suit the palate of Mr. Parker, who dictates taste to most of the American (and world) markets.

It's a complicated subject, and I can understand why Nossiter wants to let his subjects talk. There is Robert Mondavi, patriarch of the Napa wine industry, and his sons Tim and Michael, whose efforts to buy land in Languedoc faced opposition from local vignerons and government officials. There is Aimé Guibert, founder and wine maker of Daumas Gassac, iconoclastic opponent of Mondavi's plans and crusader for wines that express local terror. There is Robert Parker himself, expressing some discomfort with his influence while refusing to stop writing about the wines that he favours. There is "flying wine maker" Michel Rolland, consultant for dozens of wineries all over the world, advising them how to make Parker- friendly wines. There are many many more fascinating personalities in this documentary.

If you are a wine lover, you will want to seek out the ten-part series as well as the theatrical version of this film. But even if you're not into wine, the film is an interesting look at how the forces of globalization are changing many of the world's oldest and most established traditions. The effects on local cultures and economies cannot be ignored.

(8/10)