Monday November 2, 2009
Fine young cannibals
SILVER SCREAM By AMY DE KANTER
Films abound about those who love their fellowmen ... in a nice brown sauce.
ZOMBIE films, chick flicks, cult classics, disaster movies ... how many films have to be made about a subject before it becomes a genre?
I’m only asking because I recently rewatched the French film, Delicatessen, and I realised that there are quite a number of marvellous films that involve cannibalism.
Some of these films take the topic seriously, as something morally repugnant that only happens in extreme, isolated cases.
Delightful and dark: Anthony Hopkins as mass murderer Hannibal ‘The Cannibal’ Lecter in Hannibal. In these films, those holding the fork are either psychopaths like Hannibal Lecter (The Silence Of The Lambs and Hannibal) or individuals driven by desperate starvation to actions otherwise unthinkable (Alive).
In mysteries, cannibalism serves as an imaginative yet convenient way to cover up murder as in Fried Green Tomatoes or as ultimate punishment for the eater, as in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover.
All these are pretty good, but for a really sumptuous human feast, nothing beats the films that embrace the taboo of cannibalism to produce some delightfully dark comedy.
To semi-quote Barbra Streisand, sometimes “people who eat people are the funniest people in the world”.
Let’s start with Delicatessen. This macabre little story takes place in a miserable future, where life is pointless, food is scarce and relationships are built on a mutual need for survival, rather than on love or friendship.
The protagonists are the gloomy residents of a gloomy house. Among them is a woman who keeps trying to kill herself, but like The Roadrunner’s coyote, no matter how ingenious her attempts, they always go wrong.
There are also two middle-aged brothers whose job is to make, by hand, those little cans that moo when you turn them upside down.
The house and its tenants may be grim, but as always real estate is all about location, location, location. In this case, the ground floor is taken up by a butcher’s shop.
Regular sources of meat may have dried up but strangers are desperate for cheap housing and a “For Rent” sign on the door means there is always a steady supply of flesh for less-than-choosy customers.
No sooner than one newcomer is digested, the next is eagerly anticipated, but a good story is all about breaking patterns. Cue Louison (Dominic Pinon), a charming, lovable and gallant young man who is slated to be the next item on the menu.
Johnny Depp as the diabolical barber in Sweeney Todd. While some of his neighbours can’t wait to sink their teeth into him, others are having second thoughts. For the first time ever, they may have come across someone who is simply too sweet to eat.
If we can have a comedy about cannibalism, why not a musical? Sweeney Todd is about a barber who lets out his rage against the world by slitting his customers’ throats. His enterprising partner, Mrs Lovett, finds a profitable way to dispose of the bodies; grinding them up to use as filling for her thriving meat pie business.
Musicals changed forever with Stephen Sondheim’s immortal lyrics that included lines like: “We’ve got shepherd’s pie peppered with actual shepherd on top.”
Another fantastic musical play and film was Little Shop Of Horrors. It is not about cannibalism, but about people getting gobbled up, in this case by a huge plant. Lyrics: “If you want a rationale it isn’t very hard to see; Stop and think it over, pal; the guy sure looks like plant food to me.”
This may be another unexplored trend. There are more songs than one would expect about people as a source of nourishment. Once heard, who can forget the song, One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying Purple People Eater?
Back to today’s theme.
If France’s Delicatessen and the United States’ Sweeney Todd are not enough to convince you that comedies about cannibalism are a universal theme, let’s turn to Asia for the darkest comedy of all.
Hong Kong’s Dumplings, directed by Fruit Chan, is not for the weak of stomach. You may want to fast before watching it, or you may not, since after watching it who knows when you will ever eat again.
The movie is sick, sick, sick. Auntie Mei (Ling Bai) has discovered the secret of everlasting youth. She is actually 60 years old but does not look a day over 30. She serves up a regular batch of steamed dumplings to those willing to pay ... and not ask about the ingredients.
I do not want to give away the recipe, but do remember this is an article about cannibalism.
Mrs Lee (Miriam Yeung), a customer who has been coming to Auntie Mei in hopes of keeping her husband from straying, discovers what it is that has been working the unnatural magic.
Repulsed, she runs out of the building but then, in an absolutely brilliant cinematic moment, she stops. Yeung’s face undergoes a million changes as what she could become on the inside loses its battle with fear of what she may become on the outside.
No longer unable to plead ignorance, she slowly turns and goes back to Auntie Mei.
Considering all the other things we close our eyes to in the name of vanity (cruel animal experimentation, spending more money on our looks than many people can spend on food, plastic surgery that will make our less perfect-looking children wonder if they were adopted, ingredients that include body parts ripped from endangered species), this is a sadly realistic scenario.
Who cares if our soul is rotten, as long as men still whistle when we walk by?
As a society, few things are more taboo than cannibalism. These movies suggest that under certain circumstances, there is little we will not do.
Dark comedies are some of the most effective ways of getting uncomfortable messages across. Behind the laughter is something deeper to think about.
In this case, we might want to think about the things we let slide under the “right” circumstances. It may not be cannibalism, but some things that we allow to happen in the name of greed, revenge, insecurity and power should shock us at least as much.
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