Steineded How sad is this?

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

MacCarmel Well, blow me down. As much as I love cooking, eating, and food movies I could not get all the way through this unexpectedly boring documentary. The filmmakers took an exciting subject, a masterful chef and artist and a completely unique restaurant and turned it all into a slog and a bore. This is cinema verite at it's worst. A film that lacks sufficient explanation, interest and visual excitement. There is so much more involved to making a good documentary than turning the camera on and leaving the room. The film falls short on it's appeal to film lovers, anyone who's good in the kitchen, and scientists as well.

tendobear As an aspiring foodie myself, I found this documentary to be inspirational and thought-provoking; the sheer creativity and thought processes that goes into creating a dish is mind-blowing. However,there are flaws, I couldn't help feeling disengaged and a certain disconnect from the whole thing; while the documentary did a great job of capturing every colourful and beautiful moment, but documenting every moment doesn't make a great story. It felt very systematic and machine-like and didn't seem like there was any attempt to tell a decent story. What drives Ferran Adria? Who inspires him? How did his underlings feel about working for him? None of these human facets were touched upon so the documentary alienates the audience because it doesn't engage on an emotional level. The people you see there in the film chopping, slicing, infusing, cooking seem so far away that they might as well be on a different planet. Also, Adria comes across as a egotistical and arrogant prick who doesn't seem to actually enjoy food but sees cooking as merely a means to an end. Although he spouts deep descriptive phrases, they don't actually mean anything because he's so cold, stoic and passionless. He criticises everything and focuses only on the negatives, not once does he say anything positive and encouraging to the people who develop his dishes 24/7. Speaking of which, I'm more interested in the story of Adria's head chef Oriol Castro, he actually has passion for what he does and he seems like a great leader.

sandover El Bulli: Cooking in Progress. The subtitle obviously refers to the "work in progress" kind of modernist tradition undertakings, and I sympathize with this angle; I consider Ferran Andria's undertaking to be an artistic one and I would go as far as claiming that he puts a serious candidature for being this century's Picasso just for the sake and scale of Hispanic audacity (although his approach - and El Bulli's whereabouts are so alike the Cadaques mansion - are closer to Dali, the Dali of scientific preparation and preoccupation rather than the "surrealist"). Should this claim shock us just because it is put in the realm of culinary delights? What I found really instructive was that the fourfold team surrounding Andria for 11 years the most recent one worked like a crossbreed between a (quantum) physics laboratory and a Rennaissance studio where the apprentice takes crucial decisions for and in the canvas: this is ensemble work and clears any misconceptions about 'imagination' and 'predetermined decisions' (I liked the learn-as-you-go approach both for the highly trained chefs and the seasonal staff).Some things were on this side of fishy though, as with the need to be supplied with a calendar concerning seafood and the best time to pick it by the local fisherman: did Andria really needed the local expertise at this time of his career? Also some experiments in the kitchen during the first part made me wonder how come they had not tried them some years back. But maybe this is the flip side of being unable to fathom what, say, water with oil would taste like and how magical, in what way can it be.And this is where the doc underscores for me: having the master chef scribble things at the last act of ultimate decisions while tasting the definitive menu had me simply craving: this was just mute. There was no sense of wonder, just opaqueness, no sense of worship for the man, just a casual presentation of someone preoccupied. Was casualness the point? This seems more like casualty to me, for it lacks the bite like, say, early on, of having Andria saying to one of his sous-chefs "Do not ever give me anything that does not taste well!" imperiously angry and controlled and straight-forward! I felt cheated in the end, for no matter how good the shooting of the courses (this was like a substitute for a third act), illustration ultimately signifies the mysteries of lifestyle.

picasso2 I was excited to see this film at the SXSW film festival in Austin, TX. With no background knowledge about El Bulli or Ferran Adria prior to the screening, I hoped that this documentary would tell me about the kind of things they did. It didn't. At all. There were no interviews with the chefs (or ANYONE, for that matter) which allowed us to learn the background of the restaurant and the background of the chefs. It felt like the filmmakers just took all of the footage they got and, without editing or taking any out, they called it a movie. This caused the film to feel like it just presented the facts. It lacked a narrative idea. Yes, it was in chronological order, but it just seemed like the filmmakers didn't care about the film. So, if you want to learn more about El Bulli, you're much better off just doing research about it.