2023-06-01 10:35:00
Conscious eating is so dangerous
Are they eating or just pretending?
What: Cannes Film Festival 2023
More and more young people are rethinking their eating habits. Conscious eating is trendy. But what happens when “slower” and “less” become “no more” at some point? Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero” shows a very real threat.
Hhat you already started to eat sustainably? If not, you can always start with it. It just takes some practice. And staying power. But above all: believe. Try it like this: You cut off a small piece of a potato. A very small one. Your best bet is to halve what you think is small again. Then, in slow motion, bring the fork to your mouth. You stop there, smell it intensely, look at it closely.
At this moment there is only you and the potato. Then put the piece in your mouth and chew it extensively. Finally you swallow. Do this a few times, eventually, like when you’ve eaten all of a small potato, you’ll be full. Because if you eat slower, you eat less. Your mind, your body and last but not least the environment will benefit from this.
This is the most important lesson that the new teacher for conscious eating (Mia Wasikowska) spreads in Jessica Hausner’s Cannes competition film “Club Zero” in a private school. Her name is Frau Nowak, which is bizarrely the same as the teacher played by Leonie Benesch in Ilker Çatak’s “The Teacher’s Room”, which recently won the German Film Prize. “Nowak” means “the new one”.
Like from another world: Mrs. Nowak (Mia Wasikowska)
What: Cannes Film Festival 2023
The two Nowaks are also visually similar: blond, sparse, severe faces. The camera work with its rigid, precisely arranged frontal shots is accompanied by an eerie soundtrack in both institutional thrillers. But that’s where the similarities end. “Club Zero” is more colourful, gaudy, more upbeat. A concept film more than a character film.
Unlike most depictions of weight loss camps such as Ulrich Seidl’s “Paradise: Hoffnung”, there is not a single whistle in “Club Zero”. Instead, Ms. Nowak explains her concept calmly and patiently, so that the students see for themselves that eating is not good for them. At some point, the children, who adore Mrs. Nowak like a saint, are ready to join the exclusive Club Zero. Its members no longer eat any food. In return, they are given the prospect of eternal life.
In times of plenty there is a growing interest in renunciation movements. Netflix last year released historical drama The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh as a famous hunger artist. Here, too, the religious element appears omnipresent, reflected in the music and in the allegorical images. The last scene shows a communion constellation of parents with a student sitting in the middle saying, “You must believe.”
Hausner’s surreal psychodrama is one of the favorites in this year’s race for the Palme d’Or. Sharp, funny and over-excited, she focuses on the parents’ horrified looks. Looks of horror at the little daughter in the pink cot, where, sitting cross-legged, she is spooning up and eating up what she has just vomited in front of her parents. Gaze at a closed door behind which the child is delivering machine-like monologues about climate, capitalism, and enlightenment. Look at the son, who is getting paler and thinner because he no longer touches his mother’s roast, which he always loved so much.
Food cult with cult structure
What: Cannes Film Festival 2023
A grandiose costume and set design consistently illuminates the differences between the respective parental homes. There is the boy with a single mother who is dependent on a full scholarship because otherwise he would not be able to pay for school. Poor grades in conscious nutrition could jeopardize the scholarship. There is the talented ballet dancer, whose parents emigrated to Africa and only skype with him briefly on Christmas Eve, and repeatedly advise him not to visit them in the next few years – because of the climate. There is the daughter from a rich family with a servant who serves every meal on a silver platter. Her mother, who herself tends to avoid sugar in her diet, shows the greatest understanding for her daughter’s impulse to abstain.
What is she trying to tell us?
The only question that remains is: what does the Austrian Jessica Hausner want to tell us? Should one understand her film as a warning satire on conspiracy theories, sects and gurus? Or even religions that prescribe fasting periods of several weeks? Apparently progressive educational and teaching methods? On nutritional trends from veganism to mono to paleo diets? On the adolescent obsession with slimming? On the belief in the power of manifestation, which is widespread in Generation Z, i.e. the power of positive thoughts that are able to override even basic facts such as the need to eat more? Or, more generally, the chasm that so often prevails between parents and their adolescent children, and which no attempt at understanding, no matter how well-intentioned, can bridge?
The possible interpretations seem limitless. At the post-film dinner in Cannes with actors, directors and journalists, some recognize a weakness, others a strength, in the far-reaching parables of “Club Zero”. Perhaps asceticism can only be met with excess. Buffalo pizzas, steaks and fries are piled high on the tables.
#Club #Dangers #Conscious #Eating