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In
this film, obsessed as it is with human corporeality, eating,
drinking, defecating, urinating, copulating, belching,
vomiting, spitting and bleeding are so closely related that it
is impossible to separate out what is aesthetically pleasing
and what is merely disgusting. Violence and eroticism and
vulgarity and finesse are so intertwined here that Greenaway
makes it difficult to decide where eating ends and human waste
disposal begins.
It
is to Le Hollandais, a restaurant named after the large
reproduction of a famous Frans Hals painting that adorns one
wall of the dining room, that the thief and his wife come
every night for dinner. The thief, an unrepentant model of
cruelty, greed and unchecked self-interest, believes that
dining out is a means of gaining social respectability. Always
accompanied by the members of his gang, a collection of
revolting, uncouth characters who, like their boss, have no
appreciation whatever for fine food, the thief is evil
personified, a man with no redeeming virtues whatever. His
wife, the victim of his bullying, physical violence and
blackmail is a more sympathetic character who values and
understands the dishes that are set before her.
The
cook, who is also the owner of the restaurant, is a
perfectionist, believing that all foods should be tasted, even
if only experimentally. Although he appreciates the wife and
offers her some of his finer experiments, he detests the
thief. Knowing that the thief is a dangerous man, the cook
treats him with a curious mixture of politeness and disdain.
It
comes as no surprise when the wife takes as her lover another
regular visitor to the restaurant, a quiet, modest man who is
immersed in his love of books, the antithesis of her husband.
Nor does it surprise when the cook helps them find places in
the restaurant where it is relatively safe for them to make
love, virtually under the nose of the thief. And make love
they do – in the toilet, in pantries, in walk-in
refrigerators. That they are finally caught by the thief and
that the lover is destined to be killed, cooked and served up
as the chef d’oeuvre of a dinner is no more shocking or
surprising than any of the other events in the film.
Because
Greenaway’s goal is to dismay, shock and disgust us, the
kitchen, the restaurant and the meals served here are
particularly unappetizing. What makes them fascinating,
however, is Greenway’s application of his unique brand of
hyper-reality to historical and social settings.
The
time-frame of the kitchens is a sliding one, incorporating the
filth and squalor that typified the cooking halls of 14th
century European baronies as well as the splendor and
orderliness of the kitchens of the great chef Careme when he
held forth in the Brighton Pavillion in the early 19th
century. The decorative pieces of poached and fresh fruits are
pure Careme, having taking hours of painstaking effort to
create. The larders, however, are Medieval – swans, fat eels,
calves’ brains, freshwater fish, pearl barley truffles, piles
of macaroni and rumps of beef arranged in ways that overwhelm
rather than please the senses.
Even
though the dishes prepared by the cook are impeccable in
presentation and quality, Greenaway assures that not one dish
will make itself appealing to those in the audience. Avocado
in vinaigrette sauce with shrimps; truffled roast chickens; a
salad of pike fillets with oysters; a rich potage a la Monglas
– a creamy soup made with foie gras, truffles, and mushrooms
and flavored with Madeira can all be enormously rewarding
culinary experiences, but when accompanied by the farts,
belches and vomiting of the crooks that sit at the table, one
is hard pressed to think of any food, no matter how
masterfully prepared, as being appetizing.
Even
if it were not for the noxious company, this is not a
restaurant to which most true gourmets would be attracted.
Great cooking should be decorative but it should not be
ostentatious. Nor should sophisticated modern dining involve
great amounts of waste, overindulgence in too many rich and
uncomplimentary courses that follow one after the other, or
service that is so stilted and formal that it borders on
groveling. Such vulgar displays have been banished from the
table, as much for the sake of hygiene and good taste as for
reasons of expediency.
There
are some who claim that the most offensive moment of the film
is the moment when the lover’s body, spit roasted and
garnished with cauliflower and turnips is served up as the
single course in a special dinner prepared for the thief. From
the moral point of view, this objection stands up badly, for
in this film where excess is the rule, the eating of human
flesh is no more offensive than eating dog excrement,
urinating into a sauce, torturing a young boy or mutilating
the face of a beautiful woman, all of which have their place
in Greenaway’s world. Culinary purists will argue, however,
that spit roasting is not the ideal way to prepare human
flesh. Those who have sampled this dish (including Guy du
Maupassant, Marco Polo and Captain James Cook, who was
eventually eaten himself) are in general agreement that the
best means of cookery is by slow stewing in a peppery red wine
marinade that contains juniper berries, marjoram, rosemary and
plenty of onions.
Daniel Rogov |
