Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros

The master documentarian Frederick Wiseman, who’s 93, is a filmmaker whose specialty has been depicting the inner workings of social and political institutions, and the way they evolve and change over time.

He has explored an army base, a mental hospital, a domestic violence shelter, a small town in Maine, a neighborhood in Queens, the New York Public Library, all with seeming simplicity and impressive purity.

The best documentaries aim to capture moments in life and some elusive, previously unnamed truth about living.

Wiseman helps viewers see through fresh eyes and understand things they never thought about, or may have taken for granted.

His work is often astute in showing the details of the act of creating something, whether it’s by artists (French documentaries like “Crazy Horse,” “Ballet,” and “La Comédie-Française ou l’Amour joué”) or the workers in other documentaries trying to serve their clients or community.

Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros, a documentary about a restaurant in France, puts all of Wiseman’s natural gifts and acquired skills on full display, resulting in one of his seemingly simplest yet richest works–in text, subtext, and context.

There’s whole tradition of great, both artistically and commercially films about food and cooking, such as Big Night and Tampopo.

Menus-Plaisirs is an equally great “process” movie that shows the inner workings of a fine dining restaurant, from the initial purchase of produce and meat and fish to its preparation, plating, and service; a film about families, and family businesses,

Subtly, but perhaps most strikingly, its a non fiction film about what it means to really look at a thing, and appreciate it for what it is.

It could be a bunch of carrots or radishes in a produce market stall, a flowering shrub in a field, a herd of cows grazing, a mass of bees in a hive, or employees and supervisors moving delicately around one another in a restaurant kitchen.The main setting is Le Bois sans Feuilles (translation: “The Forest without Leaves”), a restaurant with three Michelin stars that was located in urban setting in Roanne for decades, but moved in 2017 to a manoir in nearby Oaches and adopted a more “countryside” vibe.The place is run by the Troisgros family, which owns two other restaurants in the area.Wiseman shows expected fascination with change over time, and how it is incarnated in the relationship between the current patriarch of the family, Michel, his heir apparent César.There’s a brief mention of Michel’s younger son, Léo, a chef at another restaurant who seems exasperated when his father suddenly changes the sauce for a dish he’s been perfecting for three weeks.César and Michel are related, but they interact mainly as boss and employee (cordially and with mutual respect).

There are no talking head interviews in the film, no identifying “chyrons” or titles to tell you everyone’s name and position, no voice-over narration, indeed none of the devices you now expect to see in all documentaries, regardless of subject or style.

However, Wiseman often has a subject ask another person to verbally explain an idea or process, then watch and listen.

But the vast majority of “Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros” shows Wiseman and cinematographer James Bishop find good spot to observe people doing a thing and just leaving it there and watching what happens.

In one scene, a cheesemaker takes restaurant employees on a tour of his factory and explains the chemical processes of ripening (“Each cheese has its moment of truth, and that’s when you sell it”).

There’s a sequence showing how honey is extracted from a beehive.

The run-time of Wiseman’s films is massive but well-deserved, and not indulgent.

Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros: Wiseman’s New, Masterful Documentary–What You Need to Know

Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros

PROFESSOR / CRITIC / AUTHOR