The Square

    So this week we watched The Square which is a very new documentary (A Netflix Original in fact) that has been nominated for the Best Documentary of 2014. For those of you who don't know, it is the story of the Egyptian Revolution, which largely takes place around the Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt and follows the story of people who call themselves revolutionaries while at the same time differentiating themselves from the Islamic Brotherhood.

     By pure coincidence, Hannah and I watched this on the 3 year anniversary of the start of the revolution on January 25th, 2011. After seeing this film, I was left with two thoughts.  First, it was sad to see the disharmony of the Egyptian people. At the start of the documentary, Egypt had been under what was essentially a totalitarian rule for 30 years and the youth of Egypt started to hold protests. As the protests grew in power and numbers the Islamic Brotherhood (according to the people featured in the documentary) began to latch on to this movement as a way to gain political power of their own. Eventually an election was held and Dr. Mohammed Morsy (reportedly a Muslim Brotherhood lapdog) was elected president by a margin of 52%.  The Revolutionaries (who, again, were very careful to differentiate themselves from the Muslim Brotherhood) were displeased but said they would give him a year to make changes. Almost exactly a year later those revolutionaries again began protesting, saying that since they could not defeat him in elections, this was the only way to remove him from power. The military, after two days of protesting by reportedly "Millions" of people, then ousted Morsy and put him under house arrest. This angered the Islamic Brotherhood who then organized their own protests. After these protests continued for a month, the military controlled government moved in and killed hundreds of protesters as they broke up the "sit ins".

There is a very emotional scene in the documentary where a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the original revolutionaries, is speaking with a non brotherhood revolutionary over the phone saying that this is never what they had intended for their revolution. In my opinion, this is the only redeeming scene of the film. It was very sad to me to see the the disunity of the Egyptian people, how one group could care less about the needs, beliefs and feelings of another group. It is sad to me that the people of Egypt felt that a coup was the only way to get rid of an elected official. Is there no way of recalling the President or otherwise removing him from office?

     My second thought about this documentary was that it was very one sided and therefore it was extremely difficult to determine some balance of what the truth might be. As you watch, it is extremely hard to follow along with what is occurring because there is no narration other than the revolutionaries explaining their actions. At one point, the protagonist was either shot or hit with a rock. We see his head bleeding and several doctors gathered around him and frantic and confused Arabic being translated, "Is he dying!? Was he shot? Was it a rock?" This is never again mentioned in the film. The film is full of anecdotes like this where it is impossible to determine what is actual truth because it is all essentially hearsay.  This troubles me mainly because this documentary was nominated for an Academy Award and I would hope that our standards for documentaries would be high enough that we might actually might learn something factual when we see them. Now, what I will say for this film is that it was very beautifully filmed. We see excellent footage of the raw scenes of fighting which is interspersed with film that clearly shows the devotion that the revolutionaries feel for their country and their compatriots.  In this sense, the film is quite moving.
    Over all, I would recommend this documentary only if you already are familiar with the turmoil in Egypt and would like to see the man on the ground perspective or if you are interested in the films nominated for the Academy Awards, just don't expect to learn very much actual fact.

The Black Blizzards

     So for this week's documentary I chose The Dust Bowl made by Ken Burns. If you haven't seen it, this documentary is absolutely a must see. It tells the story of the people who lived in the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas during the 1930s and is both harrowing and moving. 
    Rather than attempt to poorly summarize this amazing documentary I will simply share what I learned. There were two main ideas that I took away from seeing this film; First history seems to be repeating itself.
    In 1929, the Stock Market crashed beginning one of the greatest periods of economic hardship in modern time. Among other things, crop prices, particularly wheat fell over 60% which proved disastrous for the millions of people who had moved west to farm. As a result of the drop in prices the farmers chose to attempt to sell more by plowing up tens of millions of acres in the middle west. Then came a ten year drought and and along with it high winds that blew up dust storms. These dust storms were so extreme that they actually choked people and livestock if they were left outside. 

    We have just gone through what is now being called The Great Recession when among other things unemployment reached a high of 10% in 2009 (although this is not even half of the rate reached in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression). Many people, particularly farmers in the midwest and California are struggling financially. This problem is being further compounded by what is now a three year drought. Just this last Friday, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a a state of emergency because of the lack of rainfall saying, "perhaps the worst drought California has ever seen since records began being kept about 100 years ago". Meanwhile drought conditions in the midwest are equally troubling with almost half of the country being classified as a D2 Severe Drought. 

    The second thing I took away from this film was a thought about how tough the people of that generation (my grandparents) must have been. Imagine being born in 1920 in Boise City, Oklahoma. By the time you were 14 years old you were in the heart of the Dust Bowl and suffering through the Great Depression. There would be months at a time when the dust storms did not stop. When you could not go outside for fear of never being able to find your way back to shelter and literally choking to death on the dust.

 Not just you and your family but your entire community would be starving to death. This went on for YEARS, during which all you could do was pray for rain. In 1936, your family could not take it anymore and received a loan from the government and moved to California. In California, you and your family experienced tremendous hardships including homelessness, unemployment, and severe poverty. When everything finally settles down and your family has finally been able to make a living for themselves, World War 2 breaks out in 1941. 
    So, obviously this has been an extreme (and made up) anecdote that no doubt happened to many people. I wonder if the same things were able to happen today how our society would react. That generation went through so much more than I think I ever could. 
    Unfortunately, I do not have enough time to talk about everything that I would like to about this documentary. Please go and see it for yourself (it is on Netflix) and leave any comments or thoughts you have. 

So my girlfriend and I made a joint New Years resolution this year to watch one documentary a week for the entire year. This decision was motivated by the realization that unless I actively educate myself I will be contributing to the apathy of collective knowledge. An apathy which was highlighted by my recent reading of The Fountainhead. I’m sure if you follow this blog you will hear more about this. Think of this as a modern non-fiction version of Jay Gatsby’s resolution to “Read one improving book or magazine per week”.

Anyway, she and I agreed that we would take turns each week selecting the documentary. As of right now there are no further restrictions though we reserve the right to change it later. This blog will document our year doing this, although I will also post on other things.

So this week’s selection (her choice) was Jiro Dreams of Sushi. This film completely surpassed my expectations. It was a very interesting and beautiful story of an 85 year old Japanese native of Tokyo who started a sushi restaurant called Sukiyabashi Jiro. My favorite thing about this documentary is that it is much more than a film about sushi; it documents Japanese work culture, family, and what it takes to (to quote Suits) become a Gladiator of one’s profession. I also learned that I have no idea what makes good sushi.

What I’d really like to talk about though is the idea of what it takes to become a Gladiator of One’s profession. Jiro’s life is completely consumed by everything about Sushi. The opening lines of the documentary talk about how he regularly dreams about Sushi and then gets up in the middle of the night to create a new dish that he literally just dreamt up.

At the age of 9 he began as an apprentice at a Sushi stand and has worked the same job for 76 years! I want to emphasize that when I say work, I mean that he actually only takes a day off when he is forced to by a Japanese National Holiday or a funeral. He expects the same dedication from his staff which is made up of his eldest son and some other apprentices. His youngest son also apprenticed with him but later went to found another Sushi restaurant in Tokyo (though it is not as highly rated).
By all accounts Jiro is the preeminent Sushi Master in the world. His restaurant holds a three star Michelin rating. Which according to the French company which publishes the rating, the food is so superb that it is worth traveling to that country for. Jiro is also in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the oldest working chef with such a rating.

What is beautiful to me about Jiro is that he does not do all this work for money or fame or even success; he does it for his own satisfaction. He is one of those people who is willing to work harder than is maybe good for him to attain a perfection only he believes is possible. While this work ethic is admirable, I would really like to know; Do you think that he is satisfied? Do you think that he is happy with his accomplishments? One of the most interesting moments to me in the documentary is when his sons are talking about what it was like growing up. It was clear that they barely knew who their father was because he was never around. They relate a story where they ran and told their mother that a strange man was sleeping in the house because they did not know who he was. While the anecdote was humorous it was also a hollow laugh. Other than this story there was zero mention of Jiro’s wife and I am left wondering if she left him because he was never around. Is this what being a Gladiator of one’s profession means?

So these are my thoughts on our first documentary of the year. Please leave comments or thoughts concerning these questions or if you have any suggestions on documentaries worth viewing.

One follow up question; What do y’all think? Is it possible for a good chef to smoke? After all one needs such a good sense of smell and taste.