Three Stars: Lutz Hachmeister

Lutz Hachmeister's Three Stars isn't so much a documentary as it is a 90-minute advertisement for the Michelin Guide. They try to hide this by focusing on nine world-class chefs with varying Michelin star ratings, but instead of probing, they promote. They mention briefly two major flaws with the Michelin Guide: that it has been accused of Classism for only promoting restaurants out of the price range for the vast majority of consumers and that it has led to the nervous breakdowns and suicides of chefs fearful of losing their ratings. This first problem is hand-waved away by the smiling head of the Michelin organization with claims that they are making a concerted effort to promote more economically "friendly" restaurants. If this documentary had focused even briefly on some of these "affirmative action" eateries, it might have saved the film. But they don't. And they treat the fact that a European chef literally killed himself because of the ratings with a few clips of newsreel. There’s a line in Three Stars where an interviewee admits that people whose careers have been made by the Michelin guide will never bad mouth it. Is a similar thing going on with the makers of this film? Although I have to give the film kudos for including multiple interviews with Japanese chefs who outright condemn the guide as pointless.

5/10