‘Apple Cider Vinegar’: Visions du Reel Review

Dir/scr: Sofie Benoot. Belgium/Netherlands. 2023. 80mins

Undergoing a routine operation prompts filmmaker Sofie Benoot to reflect on the everyday wonders of life on Earth in Apple Cider Vinegar. Her wide-ranging documentary essay is a warmly engaging, sometimes whimsical affair tracing the connections between life and nature, the everyday and the profound. Further festival exposure should follow its world premiere at Visions du Reel.

 Wide-ranging, scattershot, pulled in different directions and drawn towards passionate advocates and enthusiastic eccentrics 

Following the removal of a small kidney stone that “looks like an old bit of chewing gum”, Benoot (who directed 2020 Berlin Forum Caligari prizewinner Victoria) is astonished to discover that it contained weddellite, a mineral usually found in the Antarctic. “How on Earth did an Antarctic mineral end up in my body?” she ponders. The kidney stone has grown over time, formed in a similar way to coral reefs or the Grand Canyon. That fact sets her thinking about stones large and small, and how they contain the layers of our past and the hidden history of the planet

Benoot gives her film a focus by filtering her experiences though an alter ego narrator voiced by the actor Sian Phillips. Her husky, mellifluous tones are both comforting and playful, treating the viewer as a friend, offering observations and inviting responses to random questions. Ten minutes into the film, she addresses the fact that it still lacks a title before settling on Apple Cider Vinegar – the only thing that provided Benoot some relief from her kidney stone.

The persona of the narrator is established as a fictional famous television personality who was once a ubiquitous voice of wildlife programmes on British television (shades of David Attenbourgh). Now retired, she no longer has the privilege of seeing animals in person, but “I like to keep an eye on them”. That provides the justification for utilising an array of global webcam footage.

The use of split-screen allows Benoot to flood the screen with precious moments caught on camera -  including a lakeside lion sipping water, a sleepy bear slumped on a rock, a spider creating its web across a camera lens and a solitary polar bear rolling around in the snow. Benoot particularly relishes the time required to capture these moments and the sense of anticipation that a patient viewer will be rewarded with something exceptional. There is a sense throughout of the need to slow down, look around and appreciate the wonders that go unseen in the rush of human life. 

Stones remain at the centre of the film as Benoot travels the world, visiting the lava fields of Fogo in Cape Verde and meeting various people such as stone cutter Juma’a in Palestine, Charlotte in California, whose chronic back pain seems to warn of impending earthquakes, and UK detective Lorna Dawso as she prepares a mock crime scene for training purposes. Great mysteries can be solved by small details, not least the minerals found under the fingernails of a victim or the stones in the boots of a suspect.

These encounters underline the connections between past and present, and the sense of layering built into the planet’s history. There are echoes of Werner Herzog’s work in Benoot’s approach to her subject. The documentary is wide-ranging, scattershot, pulled in different directions and drawn towards passionate advocates and enthusiastic eccentrics – including geologist Tom Blenkinsop who never misses an opportunity for a roadside stop to admire some limestone or sandstone and explain its formation to whatever audience might be at hand.

Apple Cider Vinegar does not arrive at any great conclusions, but it proves a pleasant journey that is marked by eye-catching wildlife footage, impressive locations, and Benoot’s curious spirit and open heart.