A documentary by Doris Dörrie. Featuring Edward Espe Brown. In English and German. Rated PG. Opens Friday, December 7, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

Back in 1985, director Doris Dörrie had a border-crossing hit with Men, the movie that gave rise to a long-standing two-word joke: German comedy?

Since then, she has been more seldom seen abroad, although efforts like 1992's Happy Birthday, Türke! and Naked, a decade later, proved she was still capable of making tart observations about social disorder. How to Cook Your Life, however, shows her more interested in making tarts as she follows semi-famed Zen priest and chef Edward Espe Brown on his master-class rounds.

Brown is best known for writing The Tassajara Bread Book. He still specializes in dough-related work, even if how he makes his money isn't quite addressed here. He travels from the Austrian Alps to northern California, determined to show his students how to let a knife be a knife and a spoon be a spoon. (For that important lesson, please mail five dollars to my name at this paper.)

He's a disciple of the late Shunryu Suzuki-roshi, who's seen briefly in some very grainy old footage. For a while, the movie raises some hopes that the esoteric Buddhism practised by Brown and his followers will get some kind of useful framework. But this How To is as rambling as are the decidedly uncharismatic subject's own anecdotes, which are haltingly told and often end with conclusions or insights that were–sorry to say–obvious before he began.

It's good that Dörrie, who is heard playfully interacting with Brown, includes his fits of anger and pettiness with her clever editing. These inclusions support the notion of contradictory impulses found within even the most enlightened beings. There isn't quite enough here about food or philosophy, or even comedy, to make use of in your own kitchen, real or metaphorical. Suzuki-roshi–after clopping you gently around the ears–would probably just have asked you why you're watching a movie when you could be making something good to eat.