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Wednesday, January 11, 2023

THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS (2020)

‘Can’t-miss’/award-winning documentary on Northern Italy’s truffle trade doesn’t exactly miss, merely underwhelms.  Between nosing dogs, sweetly eccentric aging owners, retail middlemen & restaurant purveyors, fungi assayers & connoisseurs, writer/director/lensers Michael Dweck & Gregory Kershaw dig up plenty of photo-friendly material, but never find an organizing principle to set their gems in.  Everything given more or less equal weight other than the dogs who suffer a double indignity: not only acting but also as unpaid camera operators!  (Attached POV ‘Go-Pro’ collars?)  Where’s the canine union when you need it?  Still a fun watch, but this ought to have been better.  Stick it out and you’ll be rewarded with the best shot in the pic as a stubborn old owner sneaks out for some nighttime foraging urged along by the panting anticipation of his eager partner.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  That funky/earthy truffle odor something of an acquired, and very expensive, taste.  Hence, truffle oil, an item most great chefs studiously avoid.

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