Film analysis: Jiro Dreams Of Sushi

The film I have chosen is “Jiro Dreams Of Sushi” (2012). This is a film that documented the story of Jiro Ono, who is an 85-year old (during the shooting) top tier sushi chef and also the owner of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a Michelin three-star, 10-seat sushi restaurant located in Tokyo Japan.

Around three years ago, I was attracted by the sushi’s diversity and the way it presents the most original flavor of its ingredients. Since then, I has been a huge fan of sushi. I started doing researches on the history of sushi in Japan and all the information about the ingredients such as the fishes and the ways different types of sushi was made. My curiosity and passion has led me to this film about Jiro, I also think his achievements in the world of sushi is a perfect example of Shokunin (craftsmanship/artisan spirit). As I am exploring the question “Is sushi a representation of Japanese culture?” in this semester, this documentary can help me have a better understanding of the best sushi chef in the world therefore have a deeper understanding of sushi itself and how the best sushi chef pushes himself to become the best. As I learned more information, I will also be able to create a more professional question list for my interviews in the future.

This documentary introduced Jiro Ono’s process of becoming the master sushi chef, by revealing his work ethic, patience on improving himself, consistency and love on his work and the shokunin he has for sushi. Broderick Fox (2018 p.40) have stated “Expository methods can be a quick and effective means of imparting background information or context necessary to understand the rest of a documentary.” “Jiro Dreams Of Sushi” (2012) is an expository and also a participatory documentary. Although it didn’t have an “god voice” as the voice over, the director David Gelb used information in the interviews from Jiro’s two sons Takashi and Yoshikazu, food critic Yamamoto and Jiro Ono himself to push the pace of the whole film. Fox (2018 p.46) also mentioned “participatory strategies are permitting documentary subjects to become active participants, authorities, and collaborators.” Participatory strategy can help the film become a result of everyone’s collaboration. As the film is structured by interviews and some interviews also included the voice of the filmmaker himself, those two modes used in the film can help the audience understand the film in a easier way when it is impossible for all the audience to have a specific understanding of sushi and Japanese culture. When the interviewees bring up certain ideas for example when Jiro mentioned “The childhood of Jiro Ono” and then let the interviewee himself further describe the story or question and then finally finish the topic, such sequence helps structure the whole documentary and also can make the audience feels a sense of emotional attachment in the film because the story is coming from the person himself.

Broderick Fox (2018 p.7) stated, “All documentaries make truth claims about our physical world and its workings.” A documentary can also make a truth claim at the beginning of the film and then use the rest of the film to make audience believe the statement. “Jiro Dreams Of Sushi” (2012) managed to state out a piece of fact in the very first 2 minutes of the film. In the beginning of the film, Jiro said he was so focused on sushi making that he was even dreaming about making sushi. This was followed by a sequence of shots showing the process of sushi making ended up with a piece of finished tuna sushi. After this sequence, the documentary officially starts introducing Jiro Ono. However, this first two minutes of the film already communicated a piece of information to the audience, that “Jiro Ono is a legendary sushi master in Japan who earned a lot of respect from the world”. This kind of strong perspective in the beginning will also attract audience to continue watching therefore they can know more about the story and find out why he became so successful. This strategy is something that I will consider putting into my own film in the future. In my opinion it is important for a film to keep the audience, if the beginning of my film is strong enough to attract the audiences’ attention, the film will seem more successful to my standard.

When Yamamoto was saying Jiro has all five of the determinant factor to be a good chef, the image switched to a sequence of Jiro making a sushi, the filmmaker used a very artistic perspective to shoot those shots. He used close-up shots on the sushi, and big aperture with the shallow depth of field gave the image an extra sense of art and poetry, the high frame rate collaborating with slow motion also contributed a really impressive visual effect. If the filmmaker did not choose to use those shooting method I just mentioned, the whole watching experience to the audience will be less interesting or attractive. It will also make Jiro look less amazing if the images don’t look that beautiful; this will become a negative impact to the film. So when I shoot my film, I will also try my best to adjust the lighting and background to make the food look as delicious as possible, it will be perfect if I could shoot the sushi to make it look like a piece of art just like the filmmaker did in the Jiro’s documentary.

Jiro’s attitude and spirit of never stopping searching his own flaws made him a real statue of Shokunin in my opinion. At the end of the film, Yamamoto mentioned that the chef who earned the Michelin three-star for the restaurant was actually Jiro’s eldest son but not Jiro himself, which means that his son might have already surpassed Jiro but he is still helping Jiro by his side and will not have his own restaurant until Jiro retires. This part showed how much this family respects the Japanese culture and traditions, and sublimed at the very end. Such ending gives the audience a big impact after they finished watching the film and gave them some space to consider the meaning behind the ending.

In conclusion, “Jiro Dreams Of Sushi” (2012) gave me a lot of insipirations on how I will be shooting my filn in the future of this semester. The way he used interviews to structure the whole documentary and the very elegant shooting methods on the food helped raising this film to a higher level. I have also learned more about sushi and Japanese culture from this film, the big amount of interviews also gave me an idea of how I should build up my question list. As I explore deeper into sushi and Japanese culture in the future, I am sure this film will help me shoot a better documentary for my major project.

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Reference list:

Jiro Dreams Of Sushi 2012, Documentary, Magnolia Pictures, USA, directed by David Gelb

Fox,B 2018 Documentary Media : History, Theory, Practice, 2nd edn, Routledge, NY, USA