Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) is David Gelb's documentary you can watch online on iFILM. It follows 85-year-old Jiro Ono, who runs a ten-seat counter wedged into a Tokyo subway passage near Ginza. The menu is sushi and nothing else. The place holds three Michelin stars.

A seat takes a month to book, the meal lasts about twenty minutes, and Jiro has stood behind that counter nearly every day for over seventy years. Gelb keeps the camera close: rice pressed by hand, a slab of tuna, the same small motions repeated toward something the old man still calls unfinished. Running underneath it all is a quiet family story. Jiro's eldest son Yoshikazu is past fifty and cooks every bit as well, yet he waits, and waits, for a father who shows no sign of stepping aside.

This came before Gelb went on to make Chef's Table, and the signature is already here: glossy slow-motion food set to Philip Glass. The film isn't really about sushi. It's about obsession with a craft, and the price a family pays to feed it. Good for anyone who likes calm, unhurried portraits of people who do one thing for life. Stream Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) online on iFILM.