Frederick Wiseman, the venerable documentarian who's 93 years old and still going strong, is known for his sprawling, compassionate and hard-hitting works chronicling everything from Boston politics (City Hall) to Paris ballet (La Danse).
 
His French focus continues with this immersion inside one of France's, and the world's, finest restaurants, which has been run by the same close-knit family over four consecutive generations. Set in the kitchens, dining rooms and neighboring farms of a mouth-watering Michelin three-star establishment nestled in the bucolic Loire region, the film is both a food lover's dream and an aspiring chef's guidebook, uncovering the sophisticated alchemy that makes such places not only run flawlessly, but serve up groundbreaking dishes that are also locally sourced. Menus-Plaisirs (the title is a pun that means both "pleasure menu" and "tiny pleasures") leaves us, perhaps most of all, with an image of harmonic bliss between work and home, man and nature, that hardly seems possible nowadays.
 
D: Frederick Wiseman, US, 2023, 4h

Join us for a pre-show reception from 12:30-1 pm, with bread, cheese and a wine tasting curated by Putnam's VINE/YARD! 21 and over, photo ID required.