Given the stylistic consistency yet markedly disparate subject matter of his vast oeuvre to date, it is curious to consider what, if anything, constituted the precedent for his latest film, Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros , a typically protracted look at an historically family-run restaurant near Lyon.
What can the artist tell us about the institution when it seems he has, from the perspective of a certain cinema culture, become one himself? We are witness to market visits and menu planning between the two before ever stepping into the kitchen, in sequences that serve as an amuse-bouche: shots of oyster mushrooms as big as squid, quenelles with white asparagus and almond mousseline, caper leaves imported from Sicily. There is no conspicuous narrative arc, however, only a marked rise in kitchen temperature as the film moves from the meditative ritual of prep to the live act of service.
Extended runtimes feel organic as ever with Wiseman, owing to a novelistic sense of detail by way of duration. The contrast to the rarified dining experience to which these men have devoted their careers is, for a moment, wistfully stark. There is a genuine sense here of cooking as a labour of love, only to be lost to the tyranny of haute cuisine and its exclusive audience.
The open kitchen, Michel insists, affords transparency while also allowing chefs to put faces to their diners, but the divide is nonetheless conspicuous. Who is performing for whom in this awkward embrace?
It is considered impolite to bring politics to the dinner table, but as Wiseman has made a career of showing, it is inseparable from the administrations of any social interaction. There is only so much the beauty of an artichoke can do.
