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.
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.