Culinary cinematic spin

Three American restaurants, each experiencing varying degrees of success and heartbreaking struggles, are profiled in the documentary “Spinning Plates”, which will be featured in the World Film Festival of Bangkok as it travels next month to cinemas in Khon Kaen, Pattaya and Chiang Mai.

Directed by Joseph Levy, the film first visits the Chicago gourmet palace Alinea and its genius chef Grant Achatz. Next is Breitbach’s, a family-owned country diner and community focal point in the Midwestern state of Iowa. And out west in Tuscon, Arizona, there’s La Cocina de Gabby, a mum-and-pop Mexican restaurant.

Levy, in Bangkok to present “Spinning Plates” to the festival audience at CentralWorld last weekend, said he wanted to explore commonalities of the wildly diverse eateries and the challenges they face. “Everybody shares the same DNA, but their stories can look so different,” he said in a post-screening talk.

In picking the places, Levy turned first to Achatz, who he’d profiled 10 years before in his Food Network series “Into the Fire”, which captured America’s top restaurants on their busiest nights. At Alinea, a progenitor of the molecular gastronomy trend that has transformed the world of gourmet dining, Levy follows Achatz in his quest for a coveted Michelen star. 

“The other two restaurants, I based somewhat on the type of places I grew up with in Texas,” Levy explained.

Breitbach’s was chosen because it is one of America’s oldest restaurants, family owned and operated since 1862. The sprawling country buffet and bar serves as a centre for the Mississippi River community of Balltown, Iowa. Aside from hearty sausage-and-egg breakfasts and coffee, mounds of Breitbach’s trademark fried chicken are dished up on big holidays.

The small Mexican place was harder to find. “When you look for a restaurant that isn’t doing very well, that is struggling, by the time you find them, they have already closed,” Levy explained. “So I what I realised is you have to find a restaurant that has just opened, that nobody is talking about.”

After hours and hours of searching online, he found a tiny photo of La Cocina de Gabby, a restaurant opened by Fernando Martinez, a wiry, energetic man who wanted to feature the traditional Mexican cooking of his plump smiling wife Gabby.

Shot in an astounding 18 days, making the film was akin to the juggling act of spinning plates, Levy said. 

“We set out to capture a moment in time in each of these three restaurants. So we spent a few days with each of them, and then came back two months later to follow up,” he explained.

At Alinea, Levy’s cameras focus on the thoughtful Achatz as he comes up with new ways to experience food. His innovations include serving entire meals on the surface of a freezing table in a process that’s more akin to sculpting than cooking. Other flourishes on Achatz’s meals include setting fire to oak leaves stuck into the top a dish, or capturing the aroma of pine needles just to overwhelm all the senses. Those are the kind of touches Achatz believes will land him that coveted position in the Michelen dining guide.

Breitbach’s, on the other hand, is all about the comfort of traditional Midwestern family dining. It’s the kind of place every small town has, where the same folks eat every day.  Some customers have their own keys, and open the place when they are the first to arrive. On big holidays like Easter or Mother’s Day, customers come from hours away, packing the place to the rafters and emptying the buffet of all its fried chicken.

Meanwhile, out west, the tables at La Cocina de Gabby sit mostly idle, and from the start, it appears the restaurant will not last long.

But like Gabby’s, Alinea and Breitbach’s also experience their own shocking hardships. A common thread runs through them all.

Being a documentary, “Spinning Plates”, deals with certain facts that aren’t too difficult to dig up, but perhaps it’s best if you don’t know anything about the film other than that it exists and tells three thrilling stories.

“Spinning Plates” comes to the World Film Festival of Bangkok as part of the American Film Showcase, an initiative of the US State Department that is now it its third year.

Run in collaboration with the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, the American Film Showcase picks up independent films, said the USC film school’s associate dean Alan Baker, who was in Bangkok with USC grad Levy. The selection is mostly documentaries but there are also narrative features and shorts. The films are taken to far-flung places chosen by the State Department, usually around 35 countries a year.

In Bangkok, this year’s selection also included the family drama “My Sister’s Quinceanera” and the musical documentary “20 Feet from Stardom”, which joins “Spinning Plates” during the World Film Festival’s tour to Khon Kaen, Pattaya and Chiang Mai.

 

Next stop: Khon Kaen, Pattaya and Chiang Mai

This year for the first time, the World Film Festival of Bangkok has a travelling edition, coming to SF cinemas in Khon Kaen from November 7 to 9, Pattaya Beach from November 14 to 16 and Chiang Mai from November 20 to 23.

There are nine films in the line-up, including such must-see classics as the pioneering sci-fi silent “Metropolis” and Francois Truffaut’s 1980 World War II drama “The Last Metro”, starring Catherine Deneuve.

Newer offerings are the powerful Myanmar drugs drama “Ice Poison”, animation in “A Cat in Paris”, the coming-of-age tale “Chasing Fireflies” from Colombia and the wry Israeli comedy “The Band’s Visit”.

And there are documentaries – “Spinning Plates” and “20 Feet from Stardom” from the US, and “Your River, My River, Our Soul”, which follows six Thai youngsters as they become environmental activists.

In Chiang Mai, “Your River, My River, Our Soul”, will be featured in an invitation-only opening gala at the SFX Cinema Maya Lifestyle Centre.

All films will have Thai and English subtitles. Find out more at www.WorldFilmBkk.com.