Due to some weird technical problems, I had to delete a couple of old posts. Here they are again, just for the record.
Time Flies
Last post, months ago, I said I was working on a Film and Food project for the Film Museum in Amsterdam. I’m proud to say it was a huge success: all the screenings and talks were sold out. We had 5 evenings of an introduction, a meal and a film._Louise O. Fresco and I did the first introduction. We talked about the premise of the series, about how, what and why food can signify in film and gave more examples than I can put in one post. Specifically, we talked about nostalgia, memories and food. A lot of films have their Madeleine moments: the moment in which a food item brings back the whole childhood of the protagonist. This is especially the case in Ratatouille, at the end of which the food critic, Anton Ego, tries the ratatouille made by the rat. He then fondly remembers his mother’s meals that nurtured not only the body, but also the soul. We screened Ettore Scola’s La Cena: a warm feel good movie about a small restaurant where everybody gathers to discuss their lives._Raymond van den Boogaard discussed the common misconception that food and love go hand in hand in movies. Now it is true that the way to a man’s heart may go through his stomach, but it’s not a truism. It can go wrong. Food in Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express is more a signifier of love going wrong than anything else. Both van den Boogaard’s talk and the film were fantastic._Power and food have a strong relationship, both in the real world and on screen. Alelxander Rinnooy Kan pointed this out beautifully, with lots of anecdotes about state banquets, meals to help negotiations, and meals in film, more precisely: Goodfellas. His main advice is not to be cheap: don’t take people to the second best restaurant in town, treat them nicely in the best and don’t start taking shop until the dessert arrives._Dana Linsen talked about Babette’s Feast and why it’s not just about religion, but also about identity. She had a plethora of examples of how eating and representation are a marriage made in heaven for the movies._In the last of the series, Joyce Roodnat talked about La Grande Bouffe, eroticism, decadence and the love of life. Her humorous and inspiring speech is included in the 5 DVD set Food and Film distributed by Cinemien/Homescreen, so go get that!
I guess I could try and capture the moments of the introductions and describe all the movies, but that would be a snooze to read (and impossible to achieve). If you missed it, I have some good news for y’all: we’re going to do a new series next year. I’ll announce it in a more timely fashion, that’s a promise.
March 3, 2009
All time favorites
It will only be a matter of time before people will ask me what my favorite food scene is in film. I’m never particularly good at questions like these (I don’t have a favorite film, writer, painting, dish, it depends on how I feel), but let me try:_One example is the scene in Chungking Express, Wong KarWai’s breakthrough movie. Cop 223 is left by his girlfriend and subsequently heart broken. She left him on April 1st, exactly one month before his birthday. He gives himself this month to collect all the cans of pineapple with his birthday as the sell thru day. If she doesn’t return by then, both their love and her favorite food will expire. Tragically, since their love has gone off, he winds up mechanically eating all of the pineapple._Why do I love this scene? Because it shows how eating, love and compulsive actions are intertwined. We may not eat ourselves silly on canned pineapple (yikes), but most of us are no strangers to irrational behavior.
Speaking of canned pineapple, what ever happened to it? Is it still available? With the world wide, year round availability of the fresh stuff, who needs the overly sweet pre-cut variety? Anna Biller, that’s who. For her movie Viva!, to be precise. She directed, starred, edited, and designed the costumes and props for this film herself. It’s a tribute to and re-appropriation of the soft core skinflicks of the seventies. She grew up in an era in which it was normal to have the playboy laying on the kitchen table (and nobody even talked about the interviews). In Viva! she lightheartedly analyzes this era and the ways in which women are portrayed in media and films. This film contains a lot of skin, but also a lot of food. And what food! All the things we thought we’d gotten over. Egg salad! Canapes! Punch! The styling of the food is absolutely perfect. One can nearly smell the curry powder and other long forgotten concoctions. I love how she uses food not only as a prop, but a significant one at that. She wickedly captures the modernist optimism of the Seventies, when plastic was still fantastic and pink was a happy color. It makes me crave the naughty indulgence of a ready made Macaroni & Cheese dinner.
February 27, 2009
Film & Food program
There’s so much going on right now, I don’t even know where to start!_Let’s begin at the beginning: Since September, I’ve been working on a program for Spui25 and the Dutch Film Museum on the meaning of food in film._The series started out with a small idea from Louise O. Fresco, food scientist and critically acclaimed novelist:”wouldn’t it be nice to do something on food in film, it’s such a wonderful topic, I’m sure we can do 2 nights on it”. Then, I was asked as the film person to think along. One very inspiring lunch later, we had 4 themes, and a longlist of people we would like to talk on the subject. Before long, the Film Museum came on board and things really started cooking with gas._The result is a series of 5 lectures with films on different themes in film, relating to food. The first lecture will be held by Louise O. Fresco, and myself, on March 4th. The theme will be nostalgia and the film is La Cena by Ettore Scola. Other themes and films are love going wrong (Chungking Express); power (Goodfellas); religion (Babette’s Feast) and eroticism (La Grande Bouffe).
Now that we have this fantastic series and the press is all over us. Tomorrow, I’ll do an interview with NCRV radio, Thursday will be VPRO night, there’s a couple of other interested journalists , as well.
It’s really great to see the kind of response that we get._Hope to see you in the Film Museum. If you can’t make it, here’s my article for Zine, the Film Museum magazine, in Dutch.
January 30, 2009
More Random Observations
#1_Tomorrow will be the last day of the Rotterdam Film Festival. This means that regulars like myself will even be easier to spot: it’s the slow and tired pace; the fanatical look in the eyes when ordering coffee; the overall blurred vision.
#2_Patience regarding everything not related to film (let’s call it real life, for now) will be extremely limited. Let’s not talk about the weather. Let’s forget about shopping. Hey, I might even not think about food for a change.
# 3_Don’t trust anybody who looks shiny and pretty at the end party. They haven’t watched a single thing. Or they could be on serious drugs. Either way, probably not the best company.
# 4_Regarding films: Yesterday, I thought the wearing of shapeless white underwear was limited to the Japanese and Korean movies that I saw. Today, I can add France to the list. Same goes for white socks.
# 5_Women in film can’t fight. Even when they’re severely beaten up by their spouses, they only halfheartedly slap back. I’ve only see one girl kick and scream, like any normal woman would do in real life. That was the main character in The Woman Who Is Beating the Earth by Tsuki Inoue. The woman gets hit by her adulterous boyfriend, takes it out on the meat in the butcher shop she works at, while dreaming of a better life as a drummer in an all girl band. In the very rhythmical short film, the boyfriend ends up getting the undesirable end of the stick.
#6_Powerless men tend to stand up in situations of conflict. Tensions rises, people start shouting. Man gets up from his chair and stands watching. And that helps how?
Picture from The Woman Who Is Beating The Earth_
Random Observations
#1_Festival regulars are easy to spot. it’s the badges, or the free bags that we carry. It’s in our eyes. Dry and red as they may be, they’re focused on a goal: the next screening, interview, or coffee. we all know how much time it takes to walk from point A to point B. We act accordingly. No distractions.
#2_Watching films in a festival is nicer than watching the same films in the movie theater around the corner. Again, it’s a matter of focus. The festival is about film, and film only. Not about a nice date or a night out. So, less popcorn, less cell phones, less talking. Wish it always was like that.
#3_The amount of coffee I drink seems to be directly related to the amount of films I walk out of. I haven’t decided yet if the coffee makes me less patient, or the fatigue preceding the coffee is responsible. I could experiment tomorrow with a guaranteed fatigue level and no coffee. Something tells me it ain’t happening.
#4_Trust only recommendations by people you know. I followed up on two recommended films. A trusted source sent me to El Cant des Ocells, by Albert Serra, a strange but wonderful take on the three visitors of baby Jesus. Very atmospheric and dark, it didn’t explain a well known story, didn’t use laymen’s psychology in dealing with the three kings, but used the elements of the story to create this piece. Full of subtle irony and humor, this counts as a masterpiece. Not everybody thought so, well over a third of the audience took off._Another source, a very nice girl that happened to sit at my table, recommended what turned out to be a very ordinary art house flick. Snoozefest! That called for more coffee….
#5_ordering a soup 5 minutes before a screening is not smart. Burning your mouth is inevitable. Doing it twice on the same day, means I’m loosing touch with reality, I think.
This is a picture from El Cant des Ocells_
January 24, 2009
Assemblage is the red thread?
Today’s film adventures started with another assemblage film. Craig Baldwin makes subversive and weird films. Muck up on Mu fortunately is exception. He plunders a wide range of sci-fi, A and B movies of the fifties, sixties and seventies to concoct a story that is as outrageous as it is energizing. Muck up on Mu tells the story of L. Ron Hubbard, the founding father of scientology; Jack Parsons, the inventor of rocket fuel and Marjorie Cameron, beatnik artist and one of the founders of the new age movement. In a story too complex to rehash, their lives are intertwined. Loosely based on their actual lives, the characters (and the film as a whole) also make some serious statements about the state of the world and the far reaching militarization of the U.S. 110 minutes of madness and mayhem on full speed. I love it.
There seems to be something going on with collages, or assemblages, or copy and paste films this year. This was the third in a space of little over two days. I can see why it is compelling to tell your own story with existing material. It gives any story a twist and it plays with notions of nostalgia maybe using people’s expectations. I found that how one uses the material, and how self-reflecting or self-indulgent the work is, influences how I appreciate it. Apparently, I’m totally cool with recycling, if the filmmaker doesn’t put too much of his own ego into it. Let’s see if I can find more copy & paste movies!_
January 24, 2009
I love film festivals
Why do I set my alarm for 8.00 A.M If I don’t have to work…. Now, at 8.30 a.m., I’m not so sure. After my first coffee, I’ll be awake and bouncy. It’s the festival time of the year. I’m in Rotterdam, the festival started on wednesday, there’s 8 more days to go._So far, I’ve seen 5 features and I think some 25 shorts. I’ve only walked out once, but that was because of a projection fail. Or to put it more correctly: a player fail. All the tapes got scrambled, so there’s not much a projectionist can do. Because, let’s face it, they are the unsung heroes of any film festival. They get films in all kinds of formats, don’t have the time to do a test run and get al the blame if a DVD doesn’t work. People, please, it’s not their fault! They would probably prefer to run things smoothly and don’t get their blood pressure in the danger zone. So, stop whining and buy these guys a coffee.
Mostly, the screenings went flawless. Amongst the features I’ve seen, were two assemblage films. One was Film Ist, a Girl and a Gun, by Gustav Deutsch. The other was La Memoire des Anges by Luc Bourdon. Both films took a good dive into film history to tell a story by using bits and pieces of other films. In Deutsch’ case, I left with the feeling that it could have been more. In Bourdon’s case, I was happy. So what was the difference? It’s not that Deutsch used his own score and Bourdon used archive material and songs. It’s not necessarily that the one used images that were more aesthetically pleasing. I think it was because Deutsch inserted his own texts that were no doubt very poetic and deep, but didn’t work for me. Bourdon let the images speak for itself and composed a story of Montreal by using other people’s views and finds. He didn’t impose himself on the viewer. Deutsch did, but then did not deliver enough.
Okay, it’s 9 a.m., I gotta go!
