Coming to theatres today, Friday, July 17: STEAK (R)EVOLUTION
Franck Ribière’s quest for the world’s best steak had its world premiere at San Sebastian last year. It has gone on to screen at Tribeca, Seattle, Göteborg, Vilnius, and BAFICI, among other events.
This ode to beef takes the first-time director, whose family raises cows in eastern France, on a trip around the world to countdown the top ten steaks he encounters, motivated by a palate-awakening experience after sampling a Peter Luger porterhouse. In contrast to his nation’s obsession with lean beef, Ribière comes to understand the need for fat marbling to impart flavor, and soon sees that perhaps the French way has been off all along. Traveling with Parisien butcher Yves-Marie Le Bourdonnec, he investigates famed beef from Argentina to Spain, Japanese kobe to Scottish Angus, learning of the loving care and regional techniques that help account for variations in taste. While overlong and too often slowly paced at close to two hours, this doc accomplishes its simple objective: providing a tour for meat-loving foodies and a personal, idiosyncratic ranking that is sure to inspire those viewers to conduct their own taste tests.
what (not) to doc 