Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Maynard James Keenan
Milla Jovovich
Directed By:
Ryan Page
Christopher Pomerenke
I have subscribed to Netflix for close to a year now and I love it. The selection of movies wasn't very good at first, but with a little patience it slowly evolved into almost a portable video store. Automatized services aren't without their drawbacks though. Sometimes, it's bludgeoning me into watching movies I don't care about. BLOOD INTO WINE has appeared first in my suggestions list for a few months now and up to this week, I did a pretty good job at ignoring it. Last Tuesday, I finally cracked and watched it. Thank God I did, because it's a very interesting, unique and clever movie. The reason why I finally decided to watch BLOOD INTO WINE is that Netflix listed it as: "You liked EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, so...." and I really, really liked EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP. Although they are very different movies, I can't help but to compare them. You might not learn as much as you thought you would, but it's going to make you think outside the box. That in itself, is as big of a gift as knowledge.
See, Maynard James Keenan is a smart guy. I'm not going to take the traditional Tool* fan stance here and tell you: "Well, he's a goddamn genius. Listen to his albums, it's self-explanatory". Watching BLOOD INTO WINE, you're going to learn very little about the art of winemaking. Instead, you're going to learn a lot about why Maynard is making wine and why he is smart. I know it sounds a little self-sufficient, but it's all good because Maynard really, is smart. Winemaking is a passion for him and by doing BLOOD INTO WINE, he accepted to share something with the audience that could have made him very vulnerable. For a rock star, it's really "bourgeois" and luxuriant to start a project such as a vineyard. It could be all about the image, but it isn't. For most of the documentary, you can see a sweaty Maynard in ragged clothes, working his ass off outdoors. He really likes to do this and for him, it's more of a personal challenge than a rock star move.
I mean, yes it's a very luxuriant thing to have your one vineyard. Nobody but a rock star or a famous actor could actually manage to have one, because it's very time consuming even only on the administrative level. In some regards, BLOOD INTO WINE is a testament to Maynard James Keenan's refusal to play the celebrity game. Think about it. How often do you see him in the gossip magazines? I never did. He doesn't go to worldly events and never does crazy antics to keep his name in the media. Whenever he goes overboard, it's to challenge his audience. Watching the documentary, you can get that whenever you don't know where Maynard is, it's because he's probably busy making wine in his Arizona vineyard. It's thoroughly satisfying to see a rock star understanding the value of hard work, dedication and passion at the very peak of his celebrity.
There are annoying flaws to BLOOD INTO WINE. Whenever the subject falls on winemaking itself, Maynard's partner Eric Glomski takes over and boy, does he suck at explaining things. I'm not sure whether it was on purpose or not, but I don't know much more about making wine now than before I viewed BLOOD INTO WINE. Maynard himself doesn't. Many times during the movie, he says: "I don't know how to make wine. It's going to take years before I do". That, my friends, is humility. It's befuddling to think a musician of his caliber still knows the meaning of the word and is still eager to learn new things. You're not going to learn much things about wine watching this documentary. A little bit, but not much. You will be pleased though to witness a portrait of well-lived celebrity and happy to realize that Maynard James Keenan never stopped longing for new experiences and different challenges. BLOOD INTO WINE is more revealing about human nature and driven passion than about winemaking, but that's what makes its charm.
SCORE: 83%
Recommendation: Watch it with your film buff friends, so you can surprise them.
*Maynard's main band. If you don't know them, you're missing out.
