As I said last month, in the sixth instalment of mini-reviews -- yes, only last month, though it seems so long ago already because time just disappears when you're imprisoned, whole weeks just seem to drop out of your life... Anyway, last month, I explained that as there's more screen time (and book time and audio-book time) in our lives than usual, mini-reviews are my little attempt to try to stop all this sand just disappearing through the hole in the egg-timer, my attempt to make sense of this weird era, when rich impressions mass against the backdrop of stultifying limitations like sumptuous tapestries on a prison wall.

First up, The Nightingale, a 2013 French-Chinese collaboration directed by Philippe Muyl. The French title is Le Promeneur d'Oiseau (The Bird Walker), which I think is much better.

This is a warm, sweet film about two different Chinas. On the one hand we have a modern, urban, upwardly mobile professional couple whose busy careers make it very difficult at times to find child-care for their imperious and Ipad-addicted small daughter Renxing. On the other hand, we have granddad, who came, somewhat unwillingly, to Beijing, for the sake of his son's education, and is now retired, widowed, devoted to his nightingale, and determined to go back to Guangxi, the southeastern region he hails from.

When Renxing needs someone to look after her, granddad takes her along on his little expedition.

She's a pain, frankly, but by the end she has managed to lift her eyes from her gadgets, appreciate the fun that simple old nature offers, and show some genuinely sacrificial love for the sake of her grandfather.

It all brought back warm, grateful memories of our trip to Guanxi Province in 2006/7, which is when all the photos in this blog post were taken.







Next, Shoplifters, 2018, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda.

Set in Japan, this is a beautiful and thought-provoking exploration of what it means to be a family.

Imagine a group of people, three generations. They might not be related. They might not always be altruistic. They might be far from honest. They might be poor, living right on the edge, making money in less than noble ways, and occupying a pathetically small, cramped space.  They might often give the impression of not being totally in touch with the real world. They may have dark secrets that won't start to come to light until the end of the movie. But they know how to give shelter. They know how to support each other. They know how to provide a family environment, and have fun together.

So many people in this little group have had to defend themselves from the tumultuous events life has thrown at them -- grandma's husband left her; Noboyu's husband was abusive; the little boy has apparently been abandoned in a car outside a pachinko parlour; the little girl has been abused.

Yet, when the wheels fall off the wagon of this pseudo-family, and the little girl ends up back with her real mother, it is apparent that she is  no longer in a situation where she is loved and involved and taken care of. The movie ends with her looking out of what has become a kind of prison towards the sky.

Powerful stuff.







Next, Taipei, and Eat Drink Man Woman, a 1994 movie directed by Ang Lee.

Here exuberant perms contrast with dull streetscapes, as three sisters try to figure out how to get what they want from life while constantly bumping up against the expectations of family and society.

The star of the show is the food... Beautiful, complex, traditional Chinese food.



It is meticulously assembled by the patriarch, the girls' widowed father, in elaborate Sunday meals, which he can't enjoy so much any more, because he's losing his taste, and the daughters don't enjoy at all because of all the family strains and secrets rippling under the staid and traditional surface of the dining table. 

Again, we're presented with a conflict between tradition and modernity: "Lee shows a Taipei that in some ways is indistinguishable from any major American city, where the toy store is stocked with Disney products, the young people eat at Wendy’s, and the streets are teeming with busy folks. The question the movie asks -- and its title answers -- is what all these people want."

This title is a quote from The Book of Ritual by Confucius, and it points to the bare necessities of life and their interdependence: "Eating cannot exist independently of drinking, and similarly, man and woman are mutually reliant."

Food leaps out at you from every corner in this movie. But relationships loom large too. Everyone needs one, it seems (including Dad, who opts at the end for what seems to me an entirely inappropriate solution...) 

I found myself watching the movie more for the food than the relationships, though... I didn't really feel I was empathizing with any of the characters in the way I had in the previous two films.







And finally, another food movie, but a French one this time: Haute Cuisine, a 2012 production directed by Christian Vincent. The plot (based on a real story involving one Daniele Delpeuch) revolves around the appointment of chef Hortense Laborie to work at the Élysée Palace as personal cook to le president de la Republique himself, Francois Mitterand.

Again the English title is a bit naff. But the French title is a tricky one to translate. Les Saveurs du Palais means the tastes of the palace, but palais also means palate, so there's a nice little double meaning.

This is a very simple, enjoyable movie, with exquisite scenes of food preparation, and nice little conversations on the philosophy of food (basically, you take top-quality ingredients, you marshal an enormous amount of care and attention, and you arrive at something deceptively simple, homely, wholesome, and GOOD).

But of course no idyll lasts. Hortense has to contend not only with the jealous and cliquey main kitchen (exclusively male) but also with more and more people who interfere, whether on budgetary or dietetic grounds.

Eventually she quits, and takes up a very different position cooking for a team of researchers at the Alfred Faure Scientific Base on Crozet Island in Antarctica. (Actually, this bit was filmed in Iceland, like everything else it seems...)

The movie opens at the point where Hortense is again moving on from this job, having proved herself able to create beautiful food even in this very different context. We're left wondering what exciting challenge she'll take up next...