The Hundred Foot Journey: A Reminiscing

Last Wednesday, I went for a movie screening. It was organised by Atout France in collaboration with Reliance entertainment.

The movie’s description in my invite was as follows: Shot extensively in the Midi-Pyrenees region in France, The Hundred Foot Journey boasts of a formidable star cast with stalwarts such as Om Puri, Helen Mirren and Juhi Chawla besides others. With an engaging storyline and a script that integrates the subtleties of French and Indian culture, we believe that the movie will appeal to a discerning audience appreciative of cross-culture cinema as well as to avid Francophiles.

And then there was the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhop0XdC5s8

And a visual introduction of the Midi Pyrenees region :http://www.youtube.com/embed/xt6y-GJPFsQ

The movie was to be followed by a discussion around the movie with Chef Saransh Goila.

Can you imagine that I still considered not going for this screening? Yeah, I considered backing out because I had tons of work but then, I figured, what the heck.

Seriously, what the heck!

So I got out, took a share cab to the nearest big bus station, got soaked waist down in the rain, cursed every cow on the planet for leaving heaps of dung on the road, cursed cowherds for letting the cows wander around, stood under a banyan tree and hailed down an AC bus and jumped in.

“Last stop,” I declared.

“Nehru Science Centre?” the conductor wanted reconfirmation.

“Yes. NSCI,” I said, with finality in my tone.

The journey took one and a half hours. I reached at 6.03pm for a 6.00pm screening. I was the only person remaining in that bus by the time I got off it. And I arrived and declared to the folks of Atout France, “Hey, I am starving, where can I get some food?”

Expectedly dramatic for a food blogger, is that not? I was told I’d get some during the interval. So I ran into the hall and traced Rushina, who had gotten me into the screening in the first place and told her I was starving. Typical mum hen that she is, thank goodness, she produced two Bourbon biscuits while I shared my bottle of water as we settled down into our seats. I said my hellos to a few more bloggers I knew and then sat through the trailer of SIngham 2, wishing it would end quickly. I have never much like Ajay Devgnn or Devgunn or however it is that he spells his name these days.

And it finally began.

Everything you need to know about the movie is already on IMDB so I will spare you the facts.

The Hundred Foot Journey is a food lover’s / blogger’s / cook’s chef’s movie. It’s a visual stunner. Rushina and I were ooh-ing and aah-ing at plump mushrooms, bright peppers, the sight of a cauldron full of masalas swimming in a curry laced with oil and meat, at kebabs sizzling on the grill, at the way a kitchen comes alive, at the language only cooks and chefs can speak – of this complete and helpless adoration of how magical cooking actually is.

The story was a complete masala movie – but as unlike the definition of masala films we have become familiar with in Bollywood, for lack of a better word. Masala, very often, means trashy but entertaining. No, this was not trashy. It was very entertaining. The characters did all those things you want them to do as an audience. You want the guy to get the girl, you want the guy to make it big, you want the guy to come back home, you want him to be given opportunities – in that, the movie was absolutely Indian. All those things, happy endings included, happened. You did not feel stood up and slightly miffed; those are things you leave for reality to do. Reel, no, reel must please. And it pleased.

But the story of the food, the journey of a mind, that treatment of feelings that get conveyed sharply despite the complete lack of dialogue – those are things that only refined film making brings. And you know, when you see the movie, that this is what a perfect marriage should bring about. And it did. The film is a love story. Between people, between people and foods, between people and their dreams, their hopes and their deepest desires.

What takes it to another level of delight are the dialogues – smart and tongue in cheek, you want to roll about laughing when Om Puri tells Helen Mirren that French food and Indian cuisine will never mix, just like the French & Indian won’t, because the two are so different. He goes on to say ‘we don’t sprinkle our spices, we spoon them!” When Mirren replies that French food is all about subtlety, he retorts saying “Some people would call it meanness of spirit!” And you know what he means when you remember craving an Aloo Paratha the morning after a night of gourmet food eating. The body knows what it knows, after all.

So watch the movie. Give yourself the chance to wish you lived in a small French hamlet. That you had the leisure to sit in a cremerie on a cobbled street to have crepes and croissants for breakfast. That you could pick fresh berries and wild mushrooms on your way to work, in a restaurant. Give yourself the ability to wish that you could buy an overgrown jungle of a bungalow and turn it into a fancy ass restaurant serving Indian curries and tandoori dishes and call it Maison Mumbai. It’s a breath taking escape. Very likely that you will step out of the film ravenous and with a complete plan to leave the city, move to the mountains and open a little restaurant.

And maybe win a Michelin star along the way.

Who knows, maybe you will!

PS: I went back home immediately after the movie. I spent two hours getting back home. I had forgotten all about my hunger during the movie's interval. And I lived without any food post lunch at 12.30 until 11 that night. I came home to a bowl of instant noodles. And I'd still go through all of it to watch the movie all over again.