HOW TO COOK YOUR LIFE
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey S. Karten
Roadside Attractions
Grade: C
Directed by: Doris Doerrie
Written By: Doris Doerrie
Cast: Edward Espe Brown, Doris Doerrie
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 10/25/07
Opens: November 16, 2007 It's a well-known fact that in each decade, Americans are getting fatter. Presently, according to nutritionists, sixty percent of us are overweight, 25% of these are obese, and that by projection, sixty percent of Americans will be obese in the year 2050. Why is this so? The answer appears to be, paradoxically, because we are not cooking food. Sixty percent of Americans eat one or more meals daily outside the home, many in fast-food joints like McDonald's. Restaurants pile on the oils, rich sauces and lard since they're out to get repeat business, not to cater to dietitians. When we do eat at home, we select frozen, prepared foods, which tend to be heavy on fatty preservatives. One solution would be to go back to cooking all of our own meals, cooking them with love, and if possible growing our own vegetables organically. These facts about American spare tires are not stressed by Doris Doerrie in her documentary film, "How to Cook Your Life." Her beef, so to speak, is with our treatment of food as simply fuel, something to grab on the run to fill up with as if we were gas tanks. Going a step further, Ms Doerrie champions a mixture of religion with the concept of growing and cooking and, using Zen priest Edward Espe Brown as her principal talking head, she introduces her audience to cooking classes in Austria (the Scheibbs Buddhist Center), in San Francisco (Zen Center and also the Tassajara Mountain Center). The gorgeous elevated setting of the Scheibbs Center in particular is conducive to thoughts of worship and life's meaning. What is not especially conducive to potential audience involvement and the excitement of taking back our food from Mickey D's is this principal talking head. Edward Espe Brown has much to say about food, about Meaning, about resisting the pull of large corporate agribusiness, but he has the habit of saying "you-know" so much times–once, twice, even three times in a single sentence–that he distracts from his words of wisdom. One would think that he had watched himself speak and perform during Joerg Jeshel's filming of his showbiz at the three Zen centers that he, or perhaps the director or some consultant, would have pointed this out. Without exaggeration, I would guess that he uses this adolescent expression eighty to one hundred times during the course of the hour and one-half movie, not to fill gaps in the conversation but as an unconscious mannerism. He has the habit as well of telling fortune-cookie maxims and unfunny anecdotes, then laughing at his own wit while a few adoring students gathered about politely laugh as well. Moreover, he is laid-back to the point of being soporific, talking slowly, in a monotone, which psychologists believe to be sometimes a symptom of unconscious anger. He is student of Zen master Suzuki Roshi, who is seen in black-and-white archival film delivering koans like "when you wash the rice, wash the rice"–which I take to mean that you should not talk on your cell, smoke a cigarette, and think of your upcoming Saturday night date while you're at the stove. Be in the moment. Some other talking heads appear, like that of an articulate but decidedly eccentric woman who eats dumpster food, stuff thrown out by restaurants, and picks berries and apples rather than spend $500 a month at the supermarket. But too much of the film is taken up by Mr. Brown, who never states whether he or his Zen disciples are vegetarian (which I hope they are). In other words, don't expect anything like Morgan Spulock's "Super Size Me" or even the slightest hint that Michael Moore had anything to do with constructing the movie, a work which counsels us in the audience to bake our own bread, make our own pizzas from scratch, and chant mundane aphorisms before eating. Rated PG-13. 93 minutes © 2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
| 
