Red Obsession

I'm a wine person.

I have consumed, studied, taught and debated the topic for almost 30 years now. I love the stuff. But... watching this film reminded me how wound up we wine-people are in our own world.

Although I found the documentary interesting and important to know, I also recognise that this film grossed less than US$10,000- at the box office. Now, I don't know what the budget was to make this film, but who in their right mind thought that this would be a good idea for a theatrical release? I'm guessing that enough people got together and convinced themselves that this would work. And secured enough funding from (almost surely) a wealthy wine-lover.

No rational film producer would ever have looked at the script and gone 'Yeah, images of French châteaux, and celebrities in the wine field will be a huge hit! Let's get Rusty to narrate and we've got it made!!!'

If you're just starting to develop an interest in wine, this should be mandatory watching. Enthusiasts already know most of the content, and will probably bemoan the lack of further detail. But if wine isn't your thing, you'll really wish you'd spent the 75 minutes on another film.

"Red Obsession" makes the viewer appreciate the true artistry involved in wine making, and the asomatous beauty involved in wine tasting (ordering wine at the Olive Garden is not wine tasting.) Drinking a good wine can be an orgasmic physical experience, as well as a genuinely spiritual one. Some of the interviewed eloquently describe an exquisite wine as an enduring experience.

The scenic views of French countryside and century-old vineyards are astounding. "Red Obsession" has some of the most spectacular cinematography this reviewer has ever seen. This alone is a very good reason to watch.

The film eventually moves into the current politics of the luxury wine industry. The epicentre of this business is currently China, which is now the largest importer of Bordeaux wines in the world. The rest of the film can be summarized in a sentence spoken by one of the commentators: "When the Chinese buy the wine, they buy the wine as a symbol of their status." The film's content, which includes exploration of the shifting market, and the changing production and consumption of premier château wines, was very informative and interesting to this uncultivated viewer. But the film is as untroubled as the well-off Chinese in it, who think nothing of dropping tens of millions of dollars buying wines, creating connoisseur clubs, or purchasing antiquated French chateaus.

Overflowing with conceit and extravagance, "Red Obsession" turns out mostly shallow and pretentious. The film doesn't ask any questions, or challenge conventional thinking, or break any new ground. Yes it is a documentary, but it is not constructive filmmaking.

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You might think the movie is about wine but it's not. It's about the transformation of China and it uses the dusty old traditional wineries of France to highlight just what is going on. The Chinese became obsessed with fine vintage wines, in particular the Rothchild Lafite Bordeaux wines. You don't have to be a wine lover to enjoy the movie. The one quote I will always remember, that the Chinese have endured the cultural revolution which is like going to hell and coming back alive. They have endured living like peasants for decades and now that they are not, they want to live it up like a sir. The picture of China that is presented in the film is one that is super modern, trendy, and really fast paced. Money is everywhere. But this is a double edged sword, as you will find out in the movie. They could have swapped Lafite for BMW's or iPhones, but the Lafite is an excellent symbol of fine old stuffy European tradition coming head on to the Chinese economic juggernaut. This movies picks a single story to convey the seismic shift in economic pull that has happened in the last decade.

This is an Australian-produced doco, looking at the history of wines from Bordeaux.

It is 75 minutes long.

After 75 minutes, I was aware that they have been making wines in Bordeaux since the Romans brought the vines; that Napoleon III had the wines graded in 1855 and the grades given remain to this day; that conditions come together for a great vintage about every 20 years; that wine is bought as an investment; that Americans have stopped buying it but the Chinese now do; that some French are sniffily xenophobic about dealing with the Chinese and that if the Chinese ever stop buying, the market may collapse.

Those facts took 75 minutes to explain. 75 very long minutes.

Some nice aerial photography. And looking at beautifully designed and constructed French chateaux is always easy on the eye.

The film had a nice, laconic commentary from Russell Crowe whose smoky, tobacco-enhanced voice fitted the subject well.

But it was all just too superficial, too under-researched with not enough of interest to fill the film's time span. Some more history would have been welcome; the Great French Wine Blight of the late 1850s post-dated Napoleon III's gradings – didn't the blight make them obsolete? This question wasn't addressed but would seem fundamental to an evaluation of Bordeaux. Still, I'm sure had I gone to France's bucolic beauty spots to research such a film, I too would have been so distracted drinking the stuff I'd have forgotten the reason for the visit.

I like to enjoy a decent wine. I don't drink a Château Latour or a Château Lafite Rothschield simply because I can't afford them, but If I could, I believe I would once in a while delight myself with such an exquisite occupation. It is strange however, after watching this movie, that my sympathy and respect for red wine didn't increase. In fact, it decreased for a moment.

This documentary is totally hollow. You squeeze it and nothing comes out. You learn virtually nothing about nothing and you are fed with the usual clichés and prejudices about the new economic giant known as China, its people and the globalized world.

The cinematography is also one of the most boring I remember to have witnessed in years. This incipient self-centered director, insists in punching you over and over, again and again, with bird views of French chateaus and never ending vineyards, intercalated with interviews so empty, so senseless, so snobbish, that you start to feel a certain discomfort, even disgust.

Everything tastes very thin, very superficial, very made out of plastic, unlike the Bordeaux wines that deserved a much serious and better documented approach.

The only positive note about this waste of time was the narrator's voice, lent by Russel Crowe.