Posted: 10/26/2002

Food of Love

(2002)

by Parama Chaudhury

If music be the food of love, this gem from Ventura Pons be a banquet…

An official selection for the Berlin International Film Festival, Food of Love is a delicate and nuanced look at relationships: between mother and son, between idol and worshipper, between friends and between lovers. The film is based on David Leavitt’s The Page-Turner and follows a young pianist’s journey from California to Barcelona to New York, stopping to examine all the intricacies of growing up with ambition, some talent and a whole lot of emotional baggage. Even though the scope of the story is small and the pace is deliberate, the film never sags. It is a carefully constructed journal of love and life in pursuit of one’s dreams.

Paul Porterfield, played by newcomer Kevin Bishop, is a talented young pianist who gets the chance of a lifetime when he is chosen to turn pages for acclaimed performer Richard Kennington. There is an instant flash of attraction between the two men, which becomes deeper when they accidentally meet again in Barcelona. Kennington, however, has a lover in New York, and soon returns to him. Paul comes back to America after an extended holiday in Europe, and heads off to the Julliard School of Music, where he trains to achieve his dream of becoming a concert pianist. In the meantime, Paul’s mother, Pamela, is going through a messy divorce, and tries to immerse herself completely in her son’s well-being as a way of distracting herself. This involves a group therapy session with women with gay sons, and an impromptu trip to New York “to put an end” to any relationship that threatens her son’s happiness. Paul has not yet come out to his mother — she figured it out after she discovered gay porn magazines in his suitcase — so she is faced with the dilemma of how to “save” her son without letting him know that she was snooping on him.

At every twist and turn of the story, there is ample potential for overkill. Director Ventura Pons’s greatest achievement is in managing to sidestep these traps and yet keep the tone of the film sympathetic and affecting. Pamela is a suburban housewife who is not homophobic but is also not completely sure about how to react to a gay son. Her character could have easily been an overwrought caricature, Instead, Juliet Stevenson’s controlled take on this wronged wife and loving mother makes Pamela someone with whom we all sympathize. Similarly Kennington, the world-renowned pianist who has a fling with Paul, is portrayed as a part exploitative-part naive Narcissus who probably isn’t quite as shallow as he usually comes across. Paul Rhys, who plays Kenningtion, alternates between demanding our attention and adoration and begging our forgiveness, a mix that makes his character intriguing, rather than a cardboard villain. Bishop’s performance is also creditable, particularly his expert changes in tone and body language as his emotions progress from despair at his mother’s naiveté to sympathy for her plight and appreciation of her concern for him. Allan Corduner as Kennington’s boyfriend Joseph Mansourian plays a decent supporting role, but often teeters dangerously towards stereotype. Stevenson and Rhys are, without doubt, the stand-out performances in Food of Love.

The locales (particularly Barcelona) and the score play a significant role in creating a suitably intimate atmosphere. Cinematographer Mario Montero gives us exquisitely detailed close-ups of Sagrada Familia and other splashes of Gaudi, as Paul and his mother make their way through the tourist spots of Barcelona. Wider shots may have given us a better view of this spectacular city, but Montero makes a wise decision in restricting his scope, since this is a perfect backdrop for the intimate mother-son relationship which we are to watch evolve. There are few outside shots of New York, but the interiors are a regular banquet of muted colors and warm tones. Carles Cases’ score complements both the hues of Paul’s New York life and the tumult in his mother’s life, in addition to being a recurring reminder of the fact that music plays an important character role in Food of Love. It is music that brought Paul and Kennington together in the first place, it is music that tears them apart — Kennington feels that Paul sees him only as the famous musician and not as someone dear to him — it is music that brings Paul to New York and therefore closer to Kennington, and it is music which adds further turmoil in Paul’s’ life after he goes home for Christmas.

In Anita Desai’s The Accompanist, a young boy describes his adoration for the great musician whom he accompanies on the tanpura. The boy’s passion is tinged with physical love and even lust, though it is never explicitly acknowledged. Food of Love is a kind of Western interpretation of this chronicle of infatuation and heartbreak. There are no happy endings, or maybe all the endings are happy. Paul and his mother achieve a new intimacy which they did not share before, but Paul has been confused, hurt and angry along the way. Pons succeeds in painting a rich picture of love, despair and eventual redemption: one which analyzes as well as describes, one which sympathizes as well as presents an objective look at a young man bewildered by his love for music and for the men he doesn’t quite understand.

Parama Chaudhury is a graduate student, an ex-writing instructor and a budding freelance writer based in New York City.

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