Film Review: SHELF LIFE
by Kathryn Loggins
Ian Cheney, United States 2024
Shelf Life is a delightfully unique and quirky documentary about one thing: cheese. This might seem like a somewhat simple premise for a documentary film, but director Ian Cheney takes a different approach that is quite fascinating. He gives the audience an intimate look into the lives of cheesemakers all around the world and thereby not only documents the process of cheesemaking in various cultures but also explores what cheese means to each person on a philosophical level. The cast of characters Cheney presents each see their craft as artistry and a metaphor for life. They explore the parallels between the aging process of cheese and how we as humans cope with growing older and are faced with our own mortality.
There’s no judgment the filmmakers have toward their human subjects or the cheeses. Some cheeses need to decay to achieve their true potential, which might seem counterintuitive. But humans too gain wisdom as they age, or approach their ideal ripeness, one might say. One affecting cheesemaker was a woman in Tbilisi, Georgia, who started her interview with a quote from the poet John Updike, "Cheese is milk's leap into immortality." That's how she seemed to want to live her life too. With a sense of immortality in preserving the art of cheesemaking, she has dedicated her life to cheese. Saddened by how the Soviet period devastated the agriculture in Georgia and nearly eliminated all of the Georgian cheeses, she is looking to bring back the old ways of making cheese and passing traditions down from generation to generation. She’s a fascinating character, who likes to work hard, but not fast. It seems like this world may be passing her by a bit, but she’s diligent and earnest and truly loves her cheese.
The film is beautifully shot with a cinematic excellence that can be described as delectable. The cheeses look absolutely delicious even when they are covered in flies or being examined under a microscope. Ezra Wolfinger, the cinematographer of SHELF LIFE won the Jury Award for Best Cinematography in a Documentary Feature, and it is well deserved. At times the footage can seem almost haunting, but it is also exquisite, detailed, and shot with such care, that both the cheeses and their makers look incredibly appealing and--dare I say, mouthwatering.
