A CINEMATIC FEAST

Sometimes the myriad of  options offered by Netflix create this weird situation in which I spend so much of my time trying to decide what to watch that I end up watching nothing. So the other night, as I was going from one genre to the next, I wasn’t very hopeful that I would actually find anything. Just as my eyes began to droop from the effort, the title  A Mid-August Lunch appeared and I found myself disappearing into summertime Rome for a little over an hour. This charming Italian film centers around the 50+ Gianni who lives in a condo with his ancient mother. Through their conversations and the interior of their condo, it is intimated that they once had money, but have fallen on slightly reduced circumstances. But the owner of the condo building is willing to forgive his debts (incurred from not paying the condo’s association fees) if during the holiday of Ferragosto, Gianni will let the owner’s mother stay with him.

In the end, Gianni has to care for his mother and three little old ladies (all unprofessional actors so that it felt, at times, as if I was watching a documentary) for a long weekend. Over the course of the weekend, egos, runaways, snobbery, dietary restrictions and increasingly tight sleeping arrangements are dealt with in Gianni’s languorous manner. My favorite scenes revolved around food as Gianni’s houseguests discussed the best way to make this or that dish – all of which seemed completely unscripted.

On a roll with Netflix, I watched I am Love next – another Italian film about family where the food should receive a credit as a supporting cast member. Whereas A Mid-August Lunch was light comedy of manners, I am Love is a melodrama replete with orgiastic scenes of consumption (both of the flesh and of food) and a sweeping soundtrack that imbues scenes that would perhaps otherwise be blasé with a sense of vital importance. Film goddess Tilda Swinton, speaking Italian and Russian for the length of the movie, eats a dish of prawns with such pleasure that it may be impossible for you to ever look at shrimp again without blushing (the photo I’ve used in this blog is an ode to those prawns, but it doesn’t really do them justice).

All of this is a long-winded preamble to the question: What are your favorite films about food? My list would included Big Night and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (although one dish in Peter Greenaway’s ode to all that is sensual and profane could only be appreciated by Hannibal Lector). I would also have to include the equally glorious Like Water for Chocolate and Babette’s Feast.  And of course, Fried Green Tomatoes (another movie who’s menu Dr. Lector would enjoy).

So, what’s on your list?