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Showing posts with label Chef. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chef. Show all posts
Friday, June 19, 2015
Friday, June 19, 2015
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Food is a fantastic dramatic metaphor. The best food and the best art both get under your skin, both bear the fingerprints of its creator and both communicate complex emotions without words. Not to mention the sheer visual dynamism of preparation and presentation, or simply describing it in strings of luscious, saliva-inducing adjectives. Sabrina Mahfouz's Chef uses food as a reflection of its subject's soul: no matter how much shit is heaped on an individual they are still capable of wonderful things.
Chef comes pre-garlanded with praise, nabbing the Fringe Fest Award at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival. It's a scanty 50 minute monologue, presented with minimal stagecraft and little theatrical frippery. There's a sense that the dead wood of theatre has been pared away - allowing us untrammelled access to an interesting person: almost theatre as confessional rather than narrative.
Said interesting person is 'Chef' (Jade Anouka). Going in we know that she was a haute-cuisine head chef and is now a convicted inmate running a prison kitchen. Salacious questions immediately pop to mind - what could have precipitated such a fall from grace? How could someone used to expressing themselves through food work in such a restrictive environment? What on earth did this woman even do?
All these answers are revealed in a chronologically jumbled story that gives us insights into family, victimhood, self expression, guilt, denial and joy. It'd be remiss of me to spoil the revelations in Chef, but I can say that by the time we're applauding we've seen a three-dimensional portrait of a genuine human being, one obviously informed by personal experience.
There's a ragged honesty to Mahfouz's writing style. Her broad technique here is to build to an emotional peak (recounting some grim act of abuse) then undercut that with subversive humour. In less capable hands these opposite forces would undermine one another, spoiling the mood. Yet Mafouz deploys comedy and tragedy with precision timing, playing us like a fiddle.
Aside from these clever rhythms, there's some straight-up beautiful descriptive writing on display. My favourite was a description of an uneaten Chinese takeaway: "noodles gloomily looking through foggy containers / at a scene of all too common domestic distress / chunks of sweet and sour chicken solidifying / under the soundwaves of unextraordinary anger". The text is studded with these wonderful turns of phrase, viscerally constructed, full of satisfying alliteration and harmonic phrasing.
This is all beautifully played by Jade Anouka. The confined upstairs room of the Soho Theatre allows a performer to engage with their audience, something that Anouka instinctively grasps. Throughout she makes eye contact with her audience, peppering us with rhetorical questions and the occasional accusatory glance. The effect is that, as we swerve towards darker themes, we're right there with her - almost implicated in her situation. Similarly, shifts in body language, from confident gesticulations to an inverted stillness, go a long way in accentuating the rhythms of the text.
Throughout we keep returning to food; Chef breathlessly describing a perfect peach, coconut tofu curry or hibiscus sorbet. It sounds delicious, the enthusiasm of the performance and the knowledge in the writing conveying an infectious passion. What I took away is that there are some incorruptible passions in life, and food is one of them. The misery inflicted upon the character cannot damp her enthusiasm and pride in her art; though her life is a shambles her soul remains intact.
I've always held that brevity doesn't indicate a lack of depth. In just 50 minutes this manages to pack in more sincerity, truth and humanity than some pieces manage in a couple of hours. I've always enjoyed seeing monologues performed, and this marks one of the best I've seen this year. It's a complex, troubling piece of work that doesn't offer up any easy answers. It's also warm-hearted, funny and approachable. A definite win all round.
★★★★
Chef is at the Soho Theatre until 4th July. Tickets here.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Sunday, June 22, 2014
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In 2010 Jon Favreau had the world at his feet. With the rapturously received Iron Man having kicked off the gargantuan Marvel movie franchise he was Hollywood's new blocksbuster golden boy. As they began preproduction on the billion dollar grossing The Avengers he was the presumptive director, ready to ascend to the heights of a Spielberg or a Nolan. Then it all went a bit wrong. The Marvel execs stuck their beak into Iron Man 2, constantly tossing Favreau last minute script revisions and crowbarring in plot elements for upcoming films. This, coupled with financial wheeling and dealing resulted in a mess of a movie, a production so frazzling Favreau openly worried whether his career as a director was kaput.
And then he made Cowboys & Aliens. Enough said.
Now, after three years away from the directors chair, he's returned with Chef. Gone is the CG bombast, in its place a small-scale indie film about a talented artist stymied by thoughtless suits who want him to keep on putting out the same old schlock. There's more than a whiff of autobiography here, especially as Favreau, writes, directs and stars. Getting back to basics with a tightly crafted personal movie like this is a kind of personal exorcism, taking ones demons and moulding them into art.
Favreau plays Carl Caspers, Head Chef at a prestigious restaurant. This is a man entirely committed to food, devoting his entire day to sourcing ingredients, preparing menus and actually cooking it. A few years ago he was the hot new chef in town, doyenne of the food critics and achingly fashionable. But now, through little fault of his own, he's become complacent. The owner of the restaurant is eager not to mess with a winning formula, meaning that Casper's been serving the same menu for what feels like forever - every time he attempts to mix things up a bit he's immediately shot down.
Things all come to a head when he gets a snooty review from an online critic (hmm...). Casper blows his top, ending up as a much-mocked viral video. Sacked from the restaurant and hiding in reclusive disgrace he eventually concludes that he should run a travelling food van where he can have total control over what he serves. And so we learn that the path to redemption is paved with ham and cheese toasties.
In a bit of a perverse twist, much of what makes Chef enjoyable is also the reason why it gets a little tedious. For example, the practically pornographic fascination with food preparation is obviously borne of Favreau's actual passion for food. In the opening scenes of the film you watch him slice an onion up, his skill with a kitchen knife telling us all we need to know about both the character and the actor's skill. But injecting so much of yourself into a film makes it feel Favreau cleaning out his closet, and the main subplot of connecting with his precocious son is served up with a few too many spoonfuls of sugar.
That said, Chef is such a breezy, optimistic and modest film that it's difficult to dislike. Favreau is a solid (though not exceptional) actor, but this role plays to his matey, intelligently masculine traits. Fortunately he's ably supported by an excellent supporting cast including Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman Oliver Platt and an all too brief appearance from his real life best bud, Robert Downey Jr. I guess when you're a Hollywood bigshot it's easy to corral A-listers for a day's shooting here and there. That said, they're stars for a reason, and this stable of charismatic characters goes a long way to buoying up the film. Heck, even the cute kid, Emjay Anthony, is tolerable enough.
Decently handled though it is, the bonding with his son element of the story is riddled with cliche. What felt far more relevant to me was the way online critics are treated. I saw this at a press screening, surrounded by others of my ilk, and as Favreau righteously rages against those that smugly sit behind a keyboard and dissect what others have poured their soul into there was a ripple of uncomfortableness across the room. Favreau isn't so gauche as to broadside against all critics, but there is the definite sensation that the Oliver Platt character is a punching bag against which he can beat out his frustrations. Maybe in future I will reflect before I dish out some particular cruelty... (nah).
Anyway, Chef is unlikely to attract too much opprobrium as it's pretty good. It's slight and inconsequential, but the tale of a man discovering inner peace through hocking toasted sandwiches to hipsters just about works. The passion for cooking burns from the screen; lending it the credibility that's a large part of why it works. The film is undoubtedly some form of therapy for Favreau, but it's a pleasant and interesting enough therapy to eavesdrop on.
★★★
Chef is on general release from June 25th
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