Almost entirely free of any cinematic ornamentation, clean and graceful as the confections that Sukiyabashi Jiro Ono and his team (including his 50 year-old son laboring in his shadow) craft. It is a portrait of perfection and of an artist giving everything he has to his medium. Giving us the sense that even his definition of family has been compromised by his search for continued refinement (where is his wife in all of this?) But the artist remains buried beneath the weight of his art. And his art turns out to be staggeringly cinematic. It’s truly amazing how exciting the whole endeavor seems. And when, after spending time with some of the most discerning fish and rice dealers on the planet, after watching the meticulous preparation and presentation, after being exposed to the elegant philosophies of life and work that have governed Jiro’s existence, just when you’re not entirely sure how the narrative can find a course towards a satisfying conclusion, it all ends in a nod to the chefs that serve the master, acknowledging that no man is an artist alone, and that one day the art of pure sushi preparation will pass into more than capable hands. David Gelb is a filmmaker who has kept his eyes and his heart wide open, only to return with a beautiful, humanist and even, in a sly way, tragic film (Jiro’s art has not just eclipsed his family but also comes off as a kind of sublimation for dealing with early childhood trauma), all about making and eating raw fish… and living an all consuming creative life. Gorgeous. My only real complaint, I could have done without the Phillip Glass score. Glass has become a documentary cliché at this point.