my dinner with andre

About a week ago, I decided to cross the cinematic threshold and finally watch "My Dinner With Andre." The idea of watching this film had been firmly planted in the back of my brain sometime in 1982, when my parents started talking about it and never really stopped. After that initial mention, references to the film seemed to creep in and out of our dinning room every 5 years or so. "It's just one long dinner conversation! What an incredible film."

By the time I was old enough to go to Power Video on my own, "My Dinner With Andre" had become way too huge of a concept for me. I got cold feet. I just couldn't bring myself to rent it. Films are funny like that. The longer you go without seeing them and the more people talk about how amazing they are, the harder it is to get up the energy (or the guts) to go see them. Perhaps what holds us back is a fear of disappointment, a sense that the experience of watching the film could never live up to the idea of the film that you have carefully constructed in your own mind.

I'll admit, I'm being a little silly. But, there's some truth to what I'm saying. I've never seen Gladiator or any of the Harry Potter films. I've never seen The Silence of the Lambs or Poltergeist. I have, however, seen one of the worst films ever made, "The Stupids." The renting of "The Stupids" is an example of what happens when 3 people can't see eye to eye so they pick the worst possible film in the store and rent it because at least they can all agree that it will be terrible.

I digress. When I told my parents that I would finally be seeing "My Dinner With Andre, " I received 2 responses. My mom's reaction was one of disappointment (or veiled sentimentality about my absence at home), "I wanted us to watch it together." My dad's, of concern, "I wonder whether the film will still resonate today."

The good news is, the film does still resonate. It brings up life questions that I've asked myself many times and discussed to death with friends and family members. I don't know whether I find more comfort or angst in the fact that these questions were being asked a quarter of a century ago. It's comforting to know that I'm not alone in my dissatisfaction with the American rubric of a life success which is directly bound and dependent on monetary gain and corporate advancement. Or a life where one lives to work rather than working to live. Since many will not make it through the blandish first hour of this film to the meaty and delicious second half, I've included 2 of my favorite exchanges here.

2 Excerpts from "My Dinner With Andre" (1981)

Wally: We just put no value at all on perceiving reality. On the contrary, this incredible emphasis that we all place now on our so-called "careers" automatically makes perceiving reality a very low priority. Because if your life is organized around trying to be successful in a career, well it doesn't matter what you perceive, or what you experience. You can really shut your mind off for years in a way.

Andre: Right! Our minds are focused on these goals and plans. Which in themselves are not reality.

Wally: No! Goals and plans are not -- They're fantasy. They're part of a dream life! You know, it always just does seem so ridiculous that everybody has to have this little goal in life. It's so absurd, in a way. When you consider that it doesn't matter which one it is.

Andre: Right! And because people's concentration is on their goals, in their life they just live each moment by habit!

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Andre: If you don't have that electric blanket, and your apartment is cold, and you need to put on another blanket or go to the closet and pile up coats on top of the blanket you have, well then you know it's cold. And that sets up a link of things: you have compassion. Well, is the person next to you cold? And are there other people in the world who are cold? What a cold night! I like the cold, my God, I never realized, I don't want a blanket, it's fun being cold, I can snuggle up against you even more because it's cold! All sorts of things occur to you. Turn on that electric blanket and it's like taking a tranquilizer, it's like being lobotomized by watching television. I think you enter the dreamworld again. I mean, what does it do to us Wally, living in an environment where something as massive as the seasons or winter or cold don't in any way affect us? We're animals after all. What does that mean? I think it means that instead of living under the sun and the moon and the sky and the stars we're living in fantasy world of our own making.