Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Wendy's "Films" of 2010 #17: Anthony Bourdain No Reservations, Season 2 (2005)

Imagine, if you will, perfect happiness. For me this would include food, delicious food, travelling to familiar and unfamiliar places all over the world, thinking about films, watching films, friendly people and perhaps even writing. It seems Anthony Bourdain lives this seemingly impossible existence.

If only I could show you the food they eat, the way it looks, and how I imagine it smells; it would be a dream to actually be there and taste it. Don't get me wrong, I know the woes of travelling: sitting on a plane for countless hours, wading through airports, the eventual desire for familiarity. But it would be infinitely worth it just to experience what this show can only attempt (which it does very well) to express through a television.

To the right you see Bourdain gazing down at what might be his favourite meat: pork. He consumes it everywhere, Puerto Rico, Indonesia, and Seattle to name a few, the cheek is his favourite part, he says, and we hear him crunch into its skin. His biting eloquence and utter honesty when it comes to food are combined with an enthusiasm and appreciation for the generous and kind people he often meets. On top of this, his love of film is obvious, in the first season (which I watched last year), he speaks of his love of Italian Neorealism, and while in Sweden in this season he references Ingmar Bergman. Film references aside, it's a show that surpasses the conventional view we typically see of travel destinations and shows us what we really want to see: people eating everything from street food to high-end restaurant fair, but all delicious and almost all something I'd love to sink my teeth into.

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