My Dinner with Andre

I never imagined one of my most profound experiences with cinema would come from a film about two people talking for two hours, but there is so much going on in the words that reverberate off the mouths of Wallace and André, that it is impossible not to be deeply affected. The conversation drifts and flows like a stream, seamlessly shifting from one point of conversation to another, whether it be dancing in Polish woods with a cult of foreign actors or staying home and reading Charlton Heston’s autobiography. But in every topic spoken about, the audience is able to gain an intensely intimate insight not only into the characters, but also into themselves. Everything talked over here can only really be interpreted by the viewer relative to their own experiences or their own doubts or their own beliefs. André is eccentric and ambitious, quite evidently a vain man who likes the sound of his own voice too. In contrast, Wallace is modest and satisfied with the small pleasures of his life, yet also somewhat smug and perhaps quite acquiescent in that he seems unwilling to shift out of his comfort zone, especially in regards to how he writes his plays. And from here, begins this wonderful dynamic between these two wholly different though at the same time rather similar men, philosophising and sharing stories and debating, and in doing so, in this mere dinner conversation, tapping into the core of the human experience. I feel it would be trivial to go into detail on the actual content of their conversation, but it burrows surprisingly deep into the nature of man, the nature of relationships, and the nature of society at large. The style is very simplistic - a few close-ups, some medium close-ups, some over the shoulders and some two shots - but they are applied with a genuine regard so that there is often given a quiet intensity or a special importance to a particular point or anecdote. My Dinner with André is a film that could never be imitated, in the same way a film like Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles could never be imitated. It asks the question ‘can I strip a story down and make a meaningful film about two people just talking?’ and it prevails in doing so. For despite the deep philosophical pondering and the quiet tension in their exchanges, at the core of this film is the pleasantry of good conversation, of talking to someone who you haven’t talked to in years and being on the same wavelength as them, and being able to stay entertained for hours by merely exchanging sounds between one another. It’s the camaraderie of being in the same place at the same time and simply talking. Good conversation is something I hold and savour in an almost unmatched esteem. Communication is one of the most important facets of my life, and I imagine that’s why I have such a love and affinity for art, for I can share feelings and ideas and thoughts with a screen, or a page, or a sound, or a picture, or indeed another person. It brings me a feeling of immeasurable warmth and compassion even to think of such things. Without communication I am nothing, for there is nothing by which that which is within me can be reflected unto others, and there is nothing by which that which lays within others may be reflected unto me.