Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
In August I attended a screening of Natural Resistance and wrote a sort of review for my Brazilian wine forum, to which Jonathan Nossiter’s Brazilian wife Paula Prandini belongs. There’s an upcoming New York screening, so here’s a translation/adaptation.
Yesterday Marcia and I went to a screening of the Natural Resistance, the latest documentary by Jonathan Nossiter and Paula Prandini. In Italian, with English subtitles. We both loved it. Too bad it will only be available on Netflix in January. As there are still many months to go, here are some anticipatory ramblings.
Unlike Mondovino, which contrasted nice people with not nice people, Natural Resistance is only about nice people. Therefore, to the relief of temperaments like mine - that cannot watch shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, where one is supposed to enjoy the mishaps of others - Natural Resistance does not contain the discomfort of seeing people unwittingly led to slaughter. A discomfort enhanced by their being real people, not actors. Sinister people, of course, that deserve to be boycotted, but it still troubles me to see anyone frittered by unilateral editing.
If you only have one chance to make a first impression, you also only have one opportunity to make certain movies. It may appear that Mondovino does not have much in common with Borat, an equally notable and genre-bending film, but it has: the two could only be made once. There could be no Mondovino II or Borat II because both depended on the surprise factor, on the protagonists ignoring the director’s intentions. With the success of both, the filmmakers became too well known to repeat the feat.
Free from this temptation, Nossiter and Prandini put together a convincing compliment to some of their favorite producers, who appear in the film, each in their own way, with humor, personality and intelligence, discussing the virtues of agriculture with deep roots in living soil, the conceptual incompetence of the DOC authorities, the sameness of the wines that follow the DOC's criteria (all are described as 'straw yellow with greenish highlights'), the lack of respect of the majority of Italians for tradition and local history, excessive hygiene that can compromise the immune system, the fear of fines from vengeful authorities, the lack of actual pigs in the major pork product production centers ...
Agricultural and aesthetic virtues are not self-contained, of course, and are part of a holistic approach that should be adopted by anyone with a minimum of consciousness. If the points of view expressed in the movie will be familiar to disorderlies, already well attuned to this way of thinking, they still bear repeating, especially when so eloquently put, and with cinematic interest.
Mondovino had a quaint little sideshow, the frequent and seemingly random appearance of dogs as a kind of 'comic relief'; in Natural Resistance the dogs reappear, this time accompanied by geese, chickens, and other beings that traipse around in real farms. The interviews with producers are interspersed with fascinating vignettes from old Italian black and white films (also clips from Chaplin films, but these I liked less), and there is a parallel narrative about the importance of conserving the Italian cinematic tradition, threatened by blockbusters as much as healthy agriculture by pesticide manufacturers. And since this almost homemade film emerged from summertime family excursions, the visits to producers are interspersed with bucolic scenes of the couple’s children playing in the background, a domestic note that enhances the contrast with the industrial mindset.
After the screening there was a discussion with the audience that, although by invitation only, did not avoid the festival of misunderstandings that seems to plague every interaction with the public. Paula Prandini gently countered misconceptions, but this made me wonder if anyone not already converted will be moved by the film’s message, even when discharged so convincingly. As one of the winemakers says, ideas go in one ear and out the other without difficulty when there is no obstacle to prevent them.
Yesterday Marcia and I went to a screening of the Natural Resistance, the latest documentary by Jonathan Nossiter and Paula Prandini. In Italian, with English subtitles. We both loved it. Too bad it will only be available on Netflix in January. As there are still many months to go, here are some anticipatory ramblings.
Unlike Mondovino, which contrasted nice people with not nice people, Natural Resistance is only about nice people. Therefore, to the relief of temperaments like mine - that cannot watch shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, where one is supposed to enjoy the mishaps of others - Natural Resistance does not contain the discomfort of seeing people unwittingly led to slaughter. A discomfort enhanced by their being real people, not actors. Sinister people, of course, that deserve to be boycotted, but it still troubles me to see anyone frittered by unilateral editing.
If you only have one chance to make a first impression, you also only have one opportunity to make certain movies. It may appear that Mondovino does not have much in common with Borat, an equally notable and genre-bending film, but it has: the two could only be made once. There could be no Mondovino II or Borat II because both depended on the surprise factor, on the protagonists ignoring the director’s intentions. With the success of both, the filmmakers became too well known to repeat the feat.
Free from this temptation, Nossiter and Prandini put together a convincing compliment to some of their favorite producers, who appear in the film, each in their own way, with humor, personality and intelligence, discussing the virtues of agriculture with deep roots in living soil, the conceptual incompetence of the DOC authorities, the sameness of the wines that follow the DOC's criteria (all are described as 'straw yellow with greenish highlights'), the lack of respect of the majority of Italians for tradition and local history, excessive hygiene that can compromise the immune system, the fear of fines from vengeful authorities, the lack of actual pigs in the major pork product production centers ...
Agricultural and aesthetic virtues are not self-contained, of course, and are part of a holistic approach that should be adopted by anyone with a minimum of consciousness. If the points of view expressed in the movie will be familiar to disorderlies, already well attuned to this way of thinking, they still bear repeating, especially when so eloquently put, and with cinematic interest.
Mondovino had a quaint little sideshow, the frequent and seemingly random appearance of dogs as a kind of 'comic relief'; in Natural Resistance the dogs reappear, this time accompanied by geese, chickens, and other beings that traipse around in real farms. The interviews with producers are interspersed with fascinating vignettes from old Italian black and white films (also clips from Chaplin films, but these I liked less), and there is a parallel narrative about the importance of conserving the Italian cinematic tradition, threatened by blockbusters as much as healthy agriculture by pesticide manufacturers. And since this almost homemade film emerged from summertime family excursions, the visits to producers are interspersed with bucolic scenes of the couple’s children playing in the background, a domestic note that enhances the contrast with the industrial mindset.
After the screening there was a discussion with the audience that, although by invitation only, did not avoid the festival of misunderstandings that seems to plague every interaction with the public. Paula Prandini gently countered misconceptions, but this made me wonder if anyone not already converted will be moved by the film’s message, even when discharged so convincingly. As one of the winemakers says, ideas go in one ear and out the other without difficulty when there is no obstacle to prevent them.
