jonn@microsoft.UUCP (Jon NEWMAN) (04/16/91)
EATING
A film review by Jon Newman
Copyright 1991 Jon Newman
Director Henry Jaglom's new film EATING has the voyeuristic
attraction of spying on a group therapy session. On the surface, the
scene of this film is a large birthday party in (where else?) southern
California, where 38 women gather to celebrate the birthdays of Helene
(turning 40), Kate (30) and Sadie (50). However, much of the film
centers on the deeply personal revelations of these women concerning
their problems with food, men and body image. As the film progresses,
we see more and more how the various problems of these apparently
independent and successful women express themselves in an obsession with
food, thinness and dieting.
One of these women is Martine, a French television documentary
maker, played convincingly by Nelly Allard. Martine is ostensibly
producing a documentary about Southern California lifestyles, but her
work actually centers on women and food. This "play within a play"
mechanism is contrived, but it produces some of the most memorable
moments of the film. EATING is sprinkled with short cutaways and
collages from this woman's videocamera, as the women at the party
describe the formative moments of their relationship with food.
I will not try to list all of the notable performances in this film,
since every one of the actresses, even the nameless bit players, has her
moment of revelation, many in front of Martine's videocamera. Director
Henry Jaglom obviously establishes a rapport with these women, and the
portrayals come across as absolutely authentic. I will however, single
out two performances. Gwen Welles plays the neurotic and unsympathetic
Sophie, whose jealousy of her successful (and, above all, thin) friends
leads her to viciously attack and manipulate her closest friend Helene.
And Frances Bergen (Candice's mother) plays Helene's mother, perhaps the
only character who is not obsessed with food, and who tries to confront
various other characters with their neurotic behavior.
One memorable scene: The cutting of the birthday cake, where slices
of birthday cake are passed endlessly around the room as if they were
time bombs.
My favorite line: "I guess I'm still looking for a man who will
excite me as much as a baked potato."
While EATING does center on the topic of eating disorders, it is
completely unlike those preachy television docudramas which isolate
specific problems in an otherwise Leave it To Beaver world. EATING
presents eating disorders with both humor and pathos, as a symptom of
the problems women face in affluent Western society.
I strongly recommend EATING to anyone who can put up with "talky"
films. In my opinion, this may be the best film to hit the arthouse
scene since JESUS OF MONTREAL.
This is my first contribution to r.a.m.r; I hope you like it!
--
jonn@microsoft.com frankm@microsoft.UUCP (Frank MALONEY) (05/17/91)
EATING
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
EATING is a film by Henry Jaglom and features 38 women including
Frances Bergen, mother of Candace, widow of Edgar, and survivor of the
Edgar McCarthy wars, as the voice of sanity and nonunderstanding.
Henry Jaglom is one of the world's great film makers and EATING is
the best film he's ever made. Okay, so sue me, but that's my opinion
and I'll stick to it. If for no other reason than that Jaglom is the
only man, woman, or child making movies today who has made a movie about
me. I am obese, have been all my life, and, while I'm not a woman, I
can relate. Boy! can I relate. I mention this because I may be a
shade prejudiced as I attempt to review this film for you. Forewarned
and all that.
Bergen (I think) says: "Twenty-five years the secret subject of
women was sex, now it's food."
Another women says: "I have yet to meet a man who excites as much
as a baked potato."
And a third says: "I'm ok if I don't eat before, say, 11 PM."
The mise-en-scene is a birthday party for three women turning 30,
40, and 50 respectively. The house fills up with the women and their
guests -- no men, although God knows men are there spiritually,
psychologically, every way but physically. One of the guests is a
charming French film maker who is doing a video on women and food. She
starts taping and interviewing the party people. Much of the movie is
these people telling the video camera about their secret lives vis-a-vis
food and eating, eating and sex, eating and abortions, eating and men,
eating and women, eating and mom or dad, eating and bingeing and bulemia
and anorexia and diets and guilt. Eating becomes a metaphor, an entre
into the neuroses, relationships, and guilty pleasures of millions upon
millions of people in Western society.
What they say is so startlingly naked, true, earnest, and honest,
it delights your soul and breaks your heart simultaneously.
Meanwhile, the principal characters are playing out various crises
in their tangled lives as the party and the interviews surge ahead
uncontrollably. Marriages and friendships founder, people wake up to
themselves, things fall apart, and things come together, all in the
context of the party.
This is heady stuff and the truly amazing thing is that it works as
a film. Critics and viewers are inevitably want to compare EATING to
SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE. EATING is better because it is at once more
concentrated and more diffuse, without the distraction of James Spader.
Jaglom makes us laugh and cry, shake our heads with disbelief and shake
our heads with recognition. Even the resident, self-described bitch,
bulemic, back-stabbing, treacherous, miserable bitch, is in the end,
crouched on the bathroom floor, sympathetic if not likable.
These people are victims of the idea that we can be perfect, that
perfection is not only attainable, but desirable. Some of them are
perfect asses, but it is their imperfections that we love in them, that
Jaglom's camera makes us love.
Jaglom's film have always been low-budget, ex-tempore affairs that
breathe with more genuine life than all the big budget blowouts that
Hollywood can churn out in a season. EATING is particularly alive and
accessible. That one about his divorce -- sorry, don't have the name
here -- in the end made me furious; maybe I just younger, but I think
the quest for perfection there made people stupid and unlovable, made
them spoiled rich kids. These people are almost all from the sunny side
of the street, but my class-warfare bells don't go off this time.
EATING is being distributed mostly to art houses, but I urge you to
see it if you possibly can. I guarantee you it will be one of the films
on my ten-best list.
--
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney