La Grande bouffe

Anyone surprised I would like this film still doesn’t know me very well. It’s The Seventh Continent meets Ace Ventura; would make a great double bill with Cook, Thief; is very interesting so close on the heels of La Caza. In short, four middle-aged men (masters all, Mastroianni, Piccoli, Tognazzi, Noiret at their hammiest) decide — for societal or personal reasons left to the viewer to assign — to kill themselves by gorging on gourmet food for as long as it takes. In the meantime, a string of whores and otherwise found women help pass the time. I’m working on the theory, but I like to read this as homoeroticism in the extreme. The men alone are agents, and interested only in each other: explicitly, the women are shown to be as useful as bare-assed sculpture or a cow. The men share a bed, with women really only a conduit, an empty vessel, between them. When Ugo is in his death throes, Phillipe feeds him lovingly as Andrea jerks him off. Yes: holes are holes, ingest at one end and ejaculate at another… anyway, at all opportunities women, food, and death are juxtaposed, leaving our heroes — united in affectionate brotherhood, in hardship, in… dare I say it? desire! — to navigate this bizarre masculine landscape. (”In hardship!” Har!) Oh, I could go on for days: of course this is a film for me! Morbidly hilarious. Very naughty. A must-see.