In Which We Make A Convincing French Woman

Blame the Mob

by ELIZABETH BARBEE

The Hundred-Foot Journey
dir. Lasse Hallstrom
122 minutes

I ate a microwavable chicken fried steak, several under baked cookies, and a couple handfuls of reduced fat Cheez-Its while watching The Hundred-Foot Journey. My meal felt ironic and a little perverse, because this movie is a two hour ode to good food.

It opens in Mumbai, where Hassan’s family has owned a popular restaurant for generations. His mother, the head of the kitchen, is superstitious and takes a mystical approach to cooking. She says obnoxious, new-agey things like, “To cook you must kill. You cook to make ghosts.” While this sentiment leaves me squeamish, it only whets Hassan’s appetite. He learns to prepare dishes using curry, cardamom, and sea urchin. He develops a fetishistic relationship with the last ingredient, one that haunts him throughout the film.

When he is in his early-twenties and terribly handsome, the restaurant, and the sea urchins contained within it, is destroyed by an angry, fire-wielding mob. The source of the rabble’s wrath is unclear even to the protagonist. “There was an election of some kind,” Hassan offers in way of explanation. “And there was a winner, and there was a loser.” He leaves it at that. Everyone escapes the flames but his mother, and even she lives on in spirit. When Hassan’s father later mutters to himself in Hindi, it doesn’t mean we need to turn up the volume (I tried that) it means he’s communing with his dead wife.

Her influence leads the family to make a series of terrible decisions. They move to England and then France, where they purchase an abandoned building just a hundred feet away from Helen Mirren. She plays Madame Mallory, a raging bitch and the proprietor of a Michelin starred restaurant that operates more like a boarding school. All the chefs seem to live on site, and their artistic impulses are frequently stifled by their rigidly traditional boss.

Mirren makes a convincing French woman. Her accent slips at times, but she has the stereotypes down. She walks with her nose stuck in the air, wears lots of scarves, and believes no other culture is worthy of existing.

When Hassan’s father decides to convert the abandoned building into an Indian restaurant, she is at equal turns disgusted and threatened. Why she thinks people craving quiche will suddenly decide they’re in the mood for Tikka Masala is beyond me, but I don’t have a fickle palate.

Her fear of losing business turns out to be baseless (obviously). Maison Mumbai is empty the night of its opening, and Hassan’s family essentially pimps themselves out to get customers. The father changes into his most elaborate turban and instructs his daughter to stand on the side of the road so passing cars can see how pretty she looks in her sari. You can hear Edward Said groan in the background. This isn’t the only instance of Orientalism in the film, not by a long shot. Though the French characters usually walk in silence, sitars follow Hassan’s family everywhere they go.

The movie is rated PG, but it is highly sensual. Every bite (and there are lots of bites) is accompanied by an orgasmic sigh. Women’s mouths are a camera favorite. Hassan falls in love with one of Madame Mallory’s employees, a French girl named Marguerite, presumably because she picks her own mushrooms and chews with her eyes closed. Marguerite is frustratingly coquettish. She rejects Hassan’s advances, but gifts him suggestive recipes. “Mix until silky to the touch,” one instructs. “Pour into a pan. Spread your cherries over the top and bake until the skewer inserted into the batter comes out clean.”

Though this is clearly a metaphor for sex, she doesn’t let Hassan touch her until he starts wearing blazers and working at a Parisian restaurant that is more science lab than brasserie. The blazers are hot, as is the new gig, but Hassan was a babe from day one. I suspect Marguerite has some deep seeded childhood issues that prevent her from accepting love. What she lacks in openness she makes up for in Anthropologie dresses. Practically every scene features a new one: some plaid, some lace - all ethereal, gorgeous, and much more expensive than they appear.

It’s no surprise this movie was produced by Oprah Winfrey. Her aesthetic is everywhere. I’m familiar with Oprah’s taste, because my mom subscribes to her magazine, which I flip through every time I visit. The pages are always filled with brightly colored images and stories that are inspiring without being controversial. The Hundred-Foot Journey is similarly luminous and nonthreatening.

I had an ex-boyfriend who refused to watch movies unless they were rated PG-13 or higher. He said sex and violence contributed significantly to his enjoyment of a film. I was initially horrified by this reveal. “What kind of freak am I dating,” I thought. But when I ran through the list of the movies I love most, they were all a little scandalous, a little gritty. There is something unsettling about a movie for adults that ignores, or in this case talks around, some of the most important facets of adulthood. The Hundred-Foot Journey wasn’t bad, but I might have enjoyed it more if an F bomb had been dropped or Marguerite and Hassan had consummated their love. That’s just the kind of depraved individual I am.

Elizabeth Barbee is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Dallas. She last wrote in these pages about an apartment. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here.

"The Damned Atlantic" - David Ford (mp3)

"The Way The Heart Breaks" - David Ford (mp3)

In Which We Pay Attention To Our Breath

The Virus

by ELIZABETH BARBEE

2002 was my freshman year of high school. It was also the year my family bought a computer. Until that point I had composed essays on an electric typewriter and collected rocks for fun. My parents were neither cheap nor obstinate; they were just blind to the benefits of modern technology.

I took to the Web right away. Myspace was still cool, primarily a place for musicians and artist types to show off tattoos. In order to have an account, it seemed you needed a pair of horn-rimmed glasses or Converse All Stars. I had neither but knew a boy who did. His profile replaced TV as my primary source of entertainment. I checked it obsessively, looking for evidence of a girlfriend, of course, but mostly just wanting to immerse myself in a world that seemed more creative and exciting than my own. Eventually I got up the courage to message him on AIM.

Our conversations were uneventful and exhilarating. We swapped favorite lyrics and book titles. Occasionally, he suggested we grab coffee, but we never followed through. Though I knew nothing would come of it, I lived for the hour we spent each evening, typing back and forth. He had just started initiating contact when our computer contracted a virus, stranger and more debilitating than any I have seen since.

For months, my romantic efforts were undermined by midget porn. The moment you logged on to the Internet, videos of small men pounding even smaller women filled the screen. The pop-ups were so detailed there was no point in buying the full-length movie. More than horrified, I was livid. Web access had come to feel like a basic human right. Rather find something else to do, I stared at the screen and sulked.

My mother found the whole thing hilarious. When I had visitors, she insisted I take them to the computer room. “Make sure they see the midget porn before they leave!” she said, “That's not something anyone should miss.” For many of my friends, this was probably their first experience with sex, and I wonder sometimes if it had any affect on their long term preferences.

I remember one actress in particular with Shirley Temple curls and a butterfly tattoo above her left breast. Her moves were acrobatic and graceful. It was clear that as a child someone had carted her to and from gymnastics lessons. I was saddened by her lost innocence and suddenly desperate to hold onto my own. I flushed a half smoked pack of cigarettes down the toilet, vowed to focus more on my studies, and toyed with the idea of joining student council.

I was aware that I would not always be young and sheltered, that time would eventually thrust me into gritty adulthood. I struggled to embrace the moment and failed miserably. At sleepovers, instead of enjoying myself, I thought about how someday I would be too old to play Truth or Dare. I was experiencing, for the first time, something I now feel everyday: premature nostalgia.

I am haunted by the impermanence of things. Dinner parties, jobs, relationships – they all seem so fragile. To remedy the problem, I take meditation classes at the local Hare Krishna temple, where a man in an orange tunic urges me to pay attention to my breath. I obey, but the rise and fall of my chest makes me frantic. I imagine myself gasping for air on my deathbed, all the people I have met and places I have seen fluttering through my mind. This is going to take either a lot of practice or a lot of SSRIs.

Elizabeth Barbee is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Dallas. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here. She last wrote in these pages about her vital signs.

"Body" - Karen O (mp3)

"Sunset Sun" - Karen O (mp3)

In Which We Begin To Conflate Our Identity

Liza with a Z

by ELIZABETH BARBEE   

I am prone to self-pity. The smallest things make me question my worth: a torn stocking, a bad picture, an angry driver flipping me the bird. I am particularly sensitive to comments about my physical appearance, even when they are not blatantly malicious. Over the course of my life, at least 30 people, most of them strangers, have told me that I look like Liza Minnelli. When a conversation turns in this direction, I end it as quickly as possible and find a quiet corner in which to weep.

I recently shared my distress with my therapist, and he encouraged me to fight back. “When people hurt you,” he said, “let them know.” It seemed so simple.

We spent the rest of our session brainstorming comebacks. Most of my ideas were passive aggressive. “Maybe I could liken the perpetrator to Barry Manilow,” I suggested. When he said this was not a good approach, that it would make me seem hostile, I decided it might be best to offer a polite correction. “I could say, 'Actually I look like Edie Sedgwick.'” He laughed as if I were joking.

My mother came close to convincing me that being compared to Liza wasn't an insult. “She doesn't do it for me either, but a lot of people feel differently,” she said, “In the 80s, she was at the top of People magazine's 'Most Beautiful' list!” There is no evidence of this on the Internet, but there are a few pictures of Liza from that era that aren't too freakish.

Her album covers are usually flattering. At times, she even teeters on pretty (see the photo accompanying "Love Pains.") Just as I was coming around, I sat down to watch the 2014 Oscars.

Ellen DeGeneres was on a terror at the Academy Awards. Most of her jokes were funny because they were cruel. She poked at June Squibb's age and Jennifer Lawrence's clumsiness. Pretty standard comedic procedure, but I was in no mood for it. When the camera zoomed to my unfortunate doppelganger, I considered turning off the TV, but some perverse impulse kept me watching. “Hello to the best Liza Minnelli impersonator I've ever seen,” DeGeneres quipped, “Good job, sir.” It felt like a personal affront. Though I once thought them brilliant, I will never speak fondly of those CoverGirl ads featuring Ellen again. That will show her.

Part of the reason I take the comparison to Minnelli so hard is because I agree with it fully. Some comments you can brush off, but others hold too much truth. Liza and I have the same haircut, the same name, the same cartoonish features.

Because of the remarkable similarities between us, I have begun to conflate our identities. When I look in the mirror, I see her face. That is why I feel comfortable analyzing her flaws in such detail. I am not being critical of her so much as I am being self-deprecating, charmingly humble. Maybe I would have more confidence if I thought confidence were a desirable thing. In my experience, it is usually indicative of a lack of depth and self-reflection. I would have lunch with someone who thinks he looks like Lyle Lovett over someone who thinks he looks like Channing Tatum any day of the week.

Elizabeth Barbee is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Dallas. She last wrote in these pages about her efficiency apartment. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here.

"Born to Love You" - Ben & Ellen Harper (mp3)

"Learn It All Again Tomorrow" - Ben & Ellen Harper (mp3)