Dweck-Kershaw 'Burgundy' Doc Falters After Subject Quits — SkimNews
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- Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw's documentary "Burgundy" profiles the eponymous French wine region, centering on patriarch Bertrand Devillard of a 160-year-old estate and Enzo, a young aspirant who models himself after midcentury actor Jean Gabin.
- Enzo abruptly quits the Devillard estate to try mussel farming, derailing the film — the reviewer notes "the narrative of a dedicated striver following his long-cherished dream evaporates" upon learning his fascination with viticulture wasn't so lifelong.
- The film pivots to a star-crossed lovers subplot in its final third when Céleste also abandons her sommelier apprenticeship for Paris; the reviewer called this hard to invest in and said it "takes the main focus of the action away from the very region and wine culture the film is purportedly celebrating."
- The directors' craftsmanship — their own cinematography, editor Pauline Gaillard's cuts timed to the moment subjects finish swirling Pinot Noir, and pictorialist chateau-tableaux — drew praise, even as the film was found to lack the "effortless, warm-hearted charm" of their 2020 prior work "The Truffle Hunters."
- A sequence in which Enzo and Céleste watch "Bonnie and Clyde" and enact their own heist as pastiche Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty figures was called "a digression too far," as was the inclusion of whimsical 8mm footage the reviewer felt functioned as filler.
- The reviewer concluded "Burgundy" "has more fragrance than substance and even then, too quickly loses its bouquet," summing the film as a vintage "fruity and full of promise at the first sip, but… los[ing] its complexity… long before the last."
Why it matters: The review positions "Burgundy" as a structural failure rooted in its makers' method — Dweck and Kershaw's deliberate, pictorialist style works when subjects cooperate with the portrait but "rather flounders" when messy real life intrudes. For the duo, whose reputation rests on "The Truffle Hunters" and "Gaucho Gaucho," this third feature exposes the limits of constructed cinema when the documentary's central subject walks off-script mid-production.
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