Bella Martha (USA: Mostly Martha): Film Comments & Picspam, Part 1
Bella Martha (2002) is a wonderful film about an obsessive-compulsive German chef whose life is transformed when her niece invades her life along with a new Italian chef in her kitchen. Martha, perfectly portrayed by Martina Gedeck (The Lives of Others) is the second-best chef in the city with a problem controlling her temper, an inability to relate to other people, and an elitist attitude about food. She allows her life to be completely consumed by her profession to the exclusion of anything else, but one day, tragedy strikes, and in its wake, Martha discovers she must change.
I saw this movie in the theater when it came out, and I completely fell in love. When I saw that an American remake has been produced, I was horrified, so I felt I must share my love for the original because it's just a gorgeous little film that never fails to make me smile.
The opening scene is hilarious! We hear Martha's first lines against a black screen until finally we are shown Martha lying on couch in a psychiatrist's office.Martha: I love to serve them roasted. It gives them a more robust taste. A wonderful side dish would be ravioli with boletus, truffles and wild mushrooms or chantarelles, depending on the season. But you need a good pigeon. It must be meaty or it'll dry out. You could also cook them in a pig's bladder in Madeira, cognac and port. It keeps the pigeon well-protected and juicy. Serve it with tagliatelle with spring onions, truffles and glazed shallots in a delicate thyme sauce.Truffles are perfect for any pigeon dish because the delicate pigeon flavor- [she turns to look at the doctor] Do you feel ill?
Doctor: No, no! Please go on.
Martha: A wonderful starter would be crayfish and mussels...
Doctor: May I change the subject for a moment?
Martha: Yes?
Doctor: Why do you come to therapy every week?
Martha: Why do you ask?
Doctor: Well, I thought perhaps it might be helpful to know.
Martha: My boss says she'll fire me, if I don't go to therapy.
Doctor: Why do you think your boss believes you need therapy?
Martha: You know what? I have no idea.
When we see Martha again, it is at the restaurant where she works as the head chef, and after she loses her temper at a customer who insists that his foie gras is underdone, we begin to understand a little why her boss insists that she see a psyschiatrist.
"One knows a good chef by the quality of his simplest of dishes," Martha tells us, and she proceeds to tell us about salmon in a light basil sauce as we see her prepare the dish in her own home: Martha is precise and efficient at home - one could almost say that she cooks without passion, from a distance that belies the intensity of her feeling toward food, however. And once Martha has beautifully prepared her salmon with a light basil sauce, she sits down to eat the nicely plated meal, and yet she does not eat. Instead, she goes downstairs to find a neighbor to offer her meal. When the neighbor asks who she is, Martha tellingly answers "a chef," before she tells him her name.
This is not the first time that we see Martha prepare a meal without eating it.
Martha's sister is coming for a visit, and all Martha can think about is what to make for their meals and she ignores her sisters efforts to make her go out and relax. And then, when we see her next, she has prepared and brought an elegant meal for her psychiatrist which she perfectly plates for him while he sighs, "We agreed you wouldn't cook for me anymore." "I didn't cook it for you," she insists, " I've tried something out! You want me to throw it all away just because you've got principles." "If you would join me, then I would venture to say that we're making progress," he responds.
But Martha doesn't join him in the meal, and nor does she join the kitchen staff as they eat their communal lunch before beginning prep for their dinner service at the restaurant (later, she doesn't even eat the sandwich one of her sous chefs offers her since she hasn't eaten anything else). While the others are all talking to each other, Martha reads at the head of the table - it's clear that she holds herself away from the others and doesn't really socialize with any of them even though they work together so intimately.
That night, during dinner service, Martha receives the terrible news: her sister who was on her way to visit Martha, has been killed in an accident, orphaning her daughter, Lina, who now becomes Martha's responsibility.
Martha: "In the tank, a lobster eats itself slowly from the inside. That's why you have to check its weight when you buy one. If it's not as heavy as it looks, it has been in the tank too long. Some people still kill a lobster by throwing it in boiling water. But by now everyone should now that for the animal it's the most agonizing death because it takes so long for it to die. The best way to kill a lobster is with a well-placed stab in the neck. It's the quickest."
Martha begins to fall apart in earnest at this point: she escapes to cry in the refrigerated storage.
It's not an exaggeration to say that Lina's arrival in Martha's life is an enormous disruption to her well-ordered antiseptic life.
She goes to visit her niece in the hospital (and her only way of relating to the girl is by bringing her food), and she asks Lina about her father. Lina has never met her father, but she knows his name (Giuseppe) and that he's from Italy. Martha vows to find him for Lina.
The walls between Lina and Martha are immediately apparent: when Martha takes Lina home from the hospital, Lina goes to sit in the back seat. And worse: she refuses to eat the meals that Martha painstakingly prepares for her (which of course Martha does not eat either).
When Martha returns to work she discovers her kitchen has been taken over by Dean Martin crooning "Volare" and she finds a stranger in her kitchen, an Italian chef named Mario that her boss has pulled in to cover for her during her family crisis. when Martha is outraged, her boss explains that she needed someone else to help out and that eventually the would need someone to stay on when their pregnant staff member needs to leave. Martha doesn't take Mario's presence very well: she describes it to her psychiatrist as though two people are trying to drive one car.
There is a hilarious scene where Mario makes lunch for the staff and when Martha refuses (as she never eats, remember?) he tells this story of his dying mother's recipe that has been in his family for centuries, and how he made this special recipe particularly for all of them, so she can't say no because she would be dishonoring his mother's memory. And to shut him up, Martha eats a giant mouthful of the pasta! "But I thought your mother lived in Nice," the boss says, and Martha stalks away.
I love how Mario invades Martha's space!
Food in the busy kitchen:
It's clear that Martha is intrigued by Mario, but she refuses to let him get under her guard. She won't laugh at his jokes, and she avoids speaking with him. When he finally presents her with the choice - either she tells him that she wants him to stay, or he'll leave, Martha is bulldozed into asking him to stay.
It's hilarious when Martha doesn't realize she's set her apron on fire!
Martha comes to depend on her downstairs neighbor, Sam, to help her look after Lina.
Martha finally realizes that Mario might actually be useful to her in finding Lina's Italian father.
The only way Martha knows how to relate to people is by cooking for them, so the fact that Lina keeps refusing to eat is killing her.
When Martha brings Lina to work one night so she won't have to stay home alone or with babysitters who walk out, Mario ingeniously manages to get Lina to eat; Martha is very surprised and grateful.
And so a pattern begins in which Lina stays in the kitchen while Martha works, they wake up late in the morning and run to get Lina to school and Mario begins to teach Lina how to cook while she makes herself useful in the kitchen.
But then Lea goes into labor while she and Martha are at the market and in all the excitement, Martha completely forgets to pick Lina up after school. To buy Lina's forgiveness, Martha agrees to grant any single wish Lina makes. Lina wishes for Mario to come over to cook for them on their next day off.
Mario shows up with the groceries and kicks Martha out of the kitchen.
Mario makes a wonderful, delicious, sensual meal and he insists that they eat it like a picnic, on the floor, and only with their hands.
Another hilarious moment: Martha begins to hyperventilate when she sees the disaster that Mario left in her kitchen when he made their wonderful meal.
Mario and Martha sneak glances at each other! They are so cute, and I love watching the three of them together: they really look like a family.
Mario leans in, and we can just see how much he wants to kiss her (this moment sizzles with UST!), but he senses maybe she's not ready, so he only says good night.
Martha puts the last of the food away after Mario leaves, but then she goes back to take it out and pick at it with her hands. It's a beautiful moment because finally she's eating, and she's eating because she enjoys it (and with her hands! I find this breakdown in her, the abandonment of her previous more formal ways to be lovely).
Continued here.