Three Documentaries, First Mondovino

Saw three documentary films in the last few days. Mondovino is directed by Jonathan Nossiter, an American film maker who lives in France who is also a trained sommelier and a wine critic. At one level, this is a wistful look at the changing world of wine production. In a series of interviews with some small artisinal wine makers and some large manufacturers including the Mondavi brothers in Napa, California, Nossiter tells the tale of how most wines are now mass-produced to satisfy the median taste of consumer-researched tastes, stamped with high ratings from acclaimed wine critics. Two people represent this corporatized, mass-marketed, mass-produced world in the film. First, Robert Parker, one of the most influential wine critics around. Second, Michel Rolland, a wine consultant with his ludicrous mantra of "micro-oxygenation" and aging in oak barrels.
There is no commentary from Nossiter - he lets the interviews present his point of view. Yet, the subsersive movement of the camera, the choice of questions, the juxtaposition of shots all tell the sad story of how artisinal wine makers are increasingly being swept aside by forces much larger and more fearsome more lucidly and with better effect than anything that a direct commentary could. For this is the story, not merely of wine but of all things small and beautiful that are being swept aside in this furious rat race of corporate profits, globalization and mass-produced life style. You don't have to have to be a wine lover but it sure helps.
Nossiter's stance against these forces of globalization is echoed most evocatively in the voices of a few wine makers from France (Bordeaux) and Italy most notably Hubert de Monteille, his son Etienne and his daughter Alix. These wine makers speak passionately about "terrior" (land) and about letting the wine speak for itself rather than the vanilla oakiness to satisfy Robert Parker's pallette. New York-based importer Neal Rosenthal is another who speaks against globalization. And there is the amateur-like swinging of the camera that speaks for Nossiter - Robert Parker's flatulent dogs, the poignant voiceless Mexican worker at the large estate of the Napa wine growers the Staglins, the beam of pride in Hubert when his daughter announces that she will leave the winery she is working at because she finds herself opposed to the policy of marketing the same wine under different labels.