My Dinner with Andre (DVD)

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Criterion has used the month of June to release three of the most iconic art-house films of all-time. "The Seventh Seal" is one of the films that launched the art-house movement in America and its imagery has been parodied in films from Woody Allen´s "Love and Death," and perhaps most famously for American audiences, in Peter Hewitt´s "Bill and Ted´s Bogus Journey." A hit. You have sank my battleship.

The other two films define two of the extremes of the perceived tendencies of art-house cinema. "Last Year at Marienbad" is, for some, the very definition of hyper-intellectualized cinema, filled with directorial flourishes and completely incomprehensible. It´s one of those "weird ass" movies that only movie geeks would ever want to watch.

"My Dinner with Andre" represents another stereotype of the art-house set, the movie in which nothing happens. Two men sit at a table and talk. That´s the whole damn movie. It´s one of those "bo-ring" movies that only movie geeks would ever want to watch.

All three movies have carved out a place in popular culture, though "Marienbad" in a more roundabout route through fashion advertisements. For the sheer audacity (or absurdity, depending on your perspective) of its structure and its title, "My Dinner with Andre" has spawned its share of jokes. In "The Simpsons," nerdy Martin Prince plays an arcade game based on the film, and in "Waiting for Guffman," Christopher Guest´s character shows off his "My Dinner with Andre" action figures.

The joke in both cases in based on the contrast between "action" and the inertia of the film. But "My Dinner with Andre" is a pretty lively affair with dramatic ebbs and flows like most narrative films. Wally (Wallace Shawn, playing a fictional version of himself) is a playwright who is on his way to visit old friend Andre (Andre Gregory, also playing a fictional version of himself.) On the bus ride to the restaurant, Wally worries about his girlfriend and his career but mostly worries about Andre. He hasn´t seen Andre, also a playwright, in years, and the rumor is that Andre has gone totally crazy.

Once dinner begins, Andre doesn´t do much to dispel the rumors. He speaks of wild adventures in what can only be called "extreme improvisation," acting workshops in the woods somewhere in Europe that turn into sub-cultures centered around pagan rituals like ceremonial burials, communing with spirits, and related gibberish.

"Dinner" is a downright transgressive film because it brazenly allows its characters to just talk. Actually it allows Andre to talk and, just as importantly, for Wally to listen. For the first hour or even more, Wally does almost nothing but say "So what else happened?" as Andre rambles from one silly anecdote to another. Few actors would be willing to just sit there and do nothing but listen, but then again Shawn and Gregory did conceive and write the play, only bringing Louis Malle in to direct at a later stage of the project.

Watching the movie again, I realized that Wally is a genuine movie hero. As Andre blathers about one spiritual, transcendent experience after another, he becomes increasingly annoying. Finally Wally, fortified by the first few dinner courses, can´t take it anymore: "Do you want to know my actual response?" Yes, Wally, we do! Slay that New Age dragon with your sword of reason!