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''Jiro Dreams of Sushi'' is a 2011 Japanese-language American
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
directed by
David Gelb
David Gelb (born October 16, 1983) is an American film director and co-founder of Supper Club, a production company.
He is most known for his documentary work on the subject of food and cuisine, including the 2011 film '' Jiro Dreams of Sush ...
.
The film follows , an 85-year-old
sushi
is a Japanese dish of prepared , usually with some sugar and salt, accompanied by a variety of , such as seafood, often raw, and vegetables. Styles of sushi and its presentation vary widely, but the one key ingredient is "sushi rice," also ...
master and owner of
Sukiyabashi Jiro, previously a
Michelin three-star restaurant. Sukiyabashi Jiro is a 10-seat, sushi-only restaurant located in a
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...
subway station. As of 2014, Jiro Ono serves a
tasting menu
A tasting menu is a collection of several dishes in small portions, served by a restaurant as a single meal. The French name for a tasting menu is ''menu dégustation''. Some restaurants and chefs specialize in tasting menus, while in other cases ...
of roughly 20 courses, for a minimum of
JP¥30,000 (US$270).
The film also profiles Jiro's two sons, both of whom are also sushi chefs. The younger son, , left Sukiyabashi Jiro to open a mirror image of his father's restaurant in
Roppongi Hills
is a development project in Tokyo and one of Japan's largest integrated property developments, located in the Roppongi district of Minato, Tokyo.
Constructed by building tycoon Minoru Mori, the mega-complex incorporates office space, apartm ...
. The 50-year-old elder son, , obliged to succeed his father, still works for Jiro and is faced with the prospect of one day taking over the
flagship restaurant.
Production and release
Initially, Gelb had planned to do what he had nicknamed "Planet Sushi", inspired by the
cinematography
Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography.
Cinematographers use a lens to foc ...
of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
documentary ''
Planet Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface ...
'':
Originally, I was going to make a film with a lot of different sushi chefs who all had different styles, but when I got to Jiro's restaurant, I was not only amazed by how good the sushi was and how much greater it was than any other sushi restaurant I had ever been to, but I also found Jiro to be such a compelling character and such an interesting person. I was also fascinated by the story of his son, who is fifty years old, but still works for his father at the restaurant. So, I thought, "Here's a story about a person living in his father's shadow while his father is in a relentless pursuit of perfection." It was the makings of a good feature film.
Food critic Masuhiro Yamamoto connected Gelb with Jiro.
Principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...
took Gelb one month (January 2010), augmented by additional scenes shot later that year in August; editing took 10 months.
''Jiro Dreams of Sushi'' debuted in the US in 2011 at the
Provincetown International Film Festival The Provincetown International Film Festival (PIFF) is an annual film festival founded in 1999 and held on Cape Cod in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The festival presents American and international narrative features, documentaries and short films f ...
and was an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival
in the same year. The documentary was made available on
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...
streaming on August 28, 2012.
, the film has grossed US$2,552,478 in North America. It is ranked 70th of all US Documentaries on
Box Office Mojo
Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is ...
.
Critical reception
The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. The film earned a rating of 99% on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
based on 88 reviews and an average rating of 7.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Beautiful, thoughtful, and engrossing, ''Jiro Dreams of Sushi'' should prove satisfying even for filmgoers who don't care for the cuisine."
On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film has a score of 77 out of 100, based on 27 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Roger Ebert called it a "portrait of
tunnel vision
Tunnel vision is the loss of peripheral vision with retention of central vision, resulting in a constricted circular tunnel-like field of vision.
Causes
Tunnel vision can be caused by:
Eyeglass users
Eyeglass users experience tunnel vision t ...
" and concluded:
While watching it, I found myself drawn into the mystery of this man. Are there any unrealized wishes in his life? Secret diversions? Regrets? If you find an occupation you love and spend your entire life working at it, is that enough? Standing behind his counter, Jiro notices things. Some customers are left-handed, some right-handed. That helps determine where they are seated at his counter. As he serves a perfect piece of sushi, he observes it being eaten. He knows the history of that piece of seafood. He knows his staff has recently started massaging an octopus for 45 minutes and not half an hour, for example. Does he search a customer's eyes for a signal that this change has been an improvement? Half an hour of massage was good enough to win three Michelin stars
The Michelin Guides ( ) are a series of guide books that have been published by the French tyre company Michelin since 1900. The Guide awards up to three Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments. The acquisition or loss of a ...
.
Soundtrack
Gelb, a "huge
Philip Glass fan", has commented on his use of Philip Glass compositions in the film's soundtrack:
In hindsight, I think it works because Philip Glass's music is kind of a metaphor for Jiro's work ethic, because it's repetitive but it also builds on itself and escalates, and it's the same with Jiro's work. Because every day he's going, he's doing the same routine, and trying to do everything exactly the same, but just reaching for that one step of improvement, and I feel like the music's doing the same thing, so they match perfectly.
The soundtrack includes the following:
#
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
:
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D, Opus 35 – Allegro Moderato.
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz (; December 10, 1987) was a Russian-born American violinist. Born in Vilnius, he moved while still a teenager to the United States, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received. He was a virtuoso since childhood. Fritz ...
(violin),
John Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli ( Giovanni Battista Barbirolli; 2 December 189929 July 1970) was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 194 ...
/
London Philharmonic Orchestra
#
Philip Glass: "I'm Going to Go Make a Cake" from the soundtrack
''The Hours''
#
Max Richter: "Berlin by Overnight"
# Glass: "Morning Passages" from the soundtrack of ''The Hours''
# Richter: "On the Nature of Daylight"
# Richter: "Infra 5"
# Glass: "Gertrude Leave the Summer House" from ''In the summer house''
# Glass: Etude No. 5
#
The Ontic: "Off to Market"
#
Anugama: "
African Journey" from Album "Exotic Dance"
# Glass: "A Choice" from the soundtrack of ''The Hours''
# Glass:
String Quartet No. 4 ''Buzcak'': I.
Kronos Quartet
The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...
# Glass: Etude No. 2
#
Mozart:
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K. 467 – Andante.
Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel KBE (born 5 January 1931) is an Austrian classical pianist, poet, author, composer, and lecturer who is known particularly for his performances of Mozart, Schubert, Schoenberg, and Beethoven.Stephen Plaistow"Brendel, Alfred" ' ...
(piano),
Neville Marriner
Sir Neville Marriner, (15 April 1924 – 2 October 2016) was an English violinist and "one of the world's greatest conductors". Gramophone lists Marriner as one of the 50 greatest conductors and another compilation ranks Marriner #14 of the ...
/
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
#
Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wor ...
and Michael Kohlbecker:
Cello Suite no. 1: Prelude. Performed by Fûnf D.
# Glass: "The Hours" from the soundtrack of ''The Hours''
# Glass: "Invitation" from the soundtrack of ''
Notes on a Scandal
''Notes on a Scandal'' (''What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal'' in the U.S.) is a 2003 novel by Zoë Heller. It is about a female teacher at a London comprehensive school who begins an affair with an underage pupil. Heller said to ''The Ob ...
''
See also
* ''
Chef's Table'' — a food documentary series created by Gelb
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
* {{Rotten-tomatoes, jiro_dreams_of_sushi, Jiro Dreams of Sushi
''Jiro Dreams of Sushi'' – video reviewfrom ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', by
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''.
Early life and education
Bradshaw was educated at Haberdasher ...
among others
2011 films
2011 documentary films
American documentary films
Documentary films about food and drink
Films scored by Philip Glass
Films scored by Max Richter
2010s Japanese-language films
Films set in Tokyo
Films shot in Tokyo
Sushi
Japan in non-Japanese culture
2010s American films