For anyone celebrating Friendsgiving around the globe, or for those land-locked in the U.S. celebrating real Thanksgiving, tonight promises a veritable feast. It’s the first of several to come throughout the holiday season – or, for those who don’t celebrate, simply the start of a long string of necessary meals that will keep everyone going through these cold, dark months.
And what’s more warming, more unifying than a meal? But what’s more dramatic than a family (or a group of friends) sitting around a table? It’s all very cinematic, and as a result, food scenes abound in the films we love. It’s the theme of Mubi’s new food-centric season, including their new Mubi Podcast Season 10: A Feast For The Eyes, launching today.
In the spirit of the season, we at The Cold Magazine have compiled a short list of our favourite food scenes in film, ranging from the heartwarming to the funny to the outright bizarre. A little something for everyone to dig into.
1. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) – Laced Gazpacho
What’s in a good gazpacho? Tomato, cucumber, pepper, onion, a touch of garlic, oil… and more than a couple of sleeping pills – at least when you’re looking to serve it to your boyfriend who has just abandoned you. If the incoming holiday season is more likely to wire your nerves than calm them, a quick dip into Pedro Almodóvar’s oeuvre may make you feel better, with all its insane scenarios and women holding on by a thread. And what better place to begin than Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown?
2. Tompopo (1985) – Egg Yolk Make Out
It’s exactly what you think: a surreal tangent in Juzo Itami’s ode to the joy of eating sees an unnamed man and his mistress explore the erotic potential of egg yolks. In a sequence equal parts sensual and nauseating, the couple pass the raw yolk delicately between each other’s mouths until it bursts. The spill from her lips is clearly intended to be pornographic, but there’s just enough silliness here to maintain Tampopo’s comedic tone. And whilst it’s not the only vignette of its kind in the film, it’s certainly the most memorable.
3. Phantom Thread (2017) – Mushroom Omelette
Now that the cold has really set in, and sniffling and coughing drift through the dark, dark streets, it’s natural to wish somebody would take care of you once the inevitable flu hits. It’s so romantic, suggests Paul Thomas Anderson in his beautiful seasonal film Phantom Thread. And what’s better than some freshly picked mushrooms, sizzling on the stove for dinner? Only to be kissed in bed, fever running high…
4. Lady Bird (2017) – Communion Wafers
Anyone who grew up in an ‘ingredient household’ will understand this scene. It’s mindless grazing in a pinch. Your hungry teenage stomach needs simple carbohydrates to munch on and in Lady Bird, communion wafers are just close enough to biscuits or crisps to make the cut. Plus, there’s something illicit about seeing the wafers pre-transubstantiation, clearly mass produced, piled up in their profane little jar. For a rebel like Lady Bird, this probably makes them taste all the sweeter.
5. In The Mood for Love (2000) – Thermos of Noodles
Loyalty can often be mistaken for routine. Is it loyalty that draws us to make the same choice every day for years on end, even when what we get from it is paltry, insubstantial, isolating? Is it loyalty that allows other options to sail past us (in slow motion, perhaps, accompanied by a striking string arrangement), leaving us wondering what could have been? Or is it the comfort of routine, the fear of change that prompts Su Li-zhen to collect a thermos of soup every evening for her dinner and take it back to her building to eat alone? The famously sparse dialogue of Wong Kar Wai’s intoxicating In the Mood for Love leaves us with more questions than answers as to the desires and intentions of his protagonists. So, perhaps the only thing we can be certain of is – yes, she dresses up like that just to go out for noodles.
6. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) – Waffles A La Mode
With plot points that include a heroin overdose, a suicide attempt and the trailing wreckage of more than one broken dream, Little Miss Sunshine is one of the most depressing feel-good movies you’ll ever see. The tightrope walk it balances between darkness and light is never more clear than when 7-year-old Olive is scared off eating ice cream by her father, who introduces her to the idea that the foods she loves will give her a body type that is unacceptable. But the heartbreak is undercut when the rest of Olive’s family enthusiastically pretend to tuck into the treat for her, a ruse that encourages her to triumphantly join them and turns this sour moment into one of the film’s most uplifting.
7. The Discreet Charm of The Bourgeoisie (1972) – Every Impossible Lunch/Dinner
Have you ever shown up to a restaurant with your friends, only to find out the owner has passed away and his open-casket vigil is taking place in the room next door? Or, on another occasion, been seated for a banquet only to realise the chickens are made of plastic, you’re actually on a soundstage, and you’re all actors in a production? One of surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel’s most enduring films follows six bourgeois French men and women who keep trying to arrange lunches and dinners, only to be halted in one absurd way after another. They’re not quite starving, but what’s left to do when you take away their dinner parties?
8. Ratatouille (2007) -– Ratatouille
Finally, one for the whole family – Pixar’s much-beloved Ratatouille. A film that’s all about food, who gets to cook it, and who doesn’t, all culminating in one stern critic’s tasting of a ratatouille. It’s a simple, even boring meal, and yet the sequence in which Ego is transported back to his childhood, to his mother’s own cooking… that’s what good food is all about!
For more cinematic food moments, you can tune in to Mubi’s new season wherever you get your podcasts.