Two friends snack on churros inChallengers(2024). You know the scene, it’s a hot and horny moment, without anything explicit happening — or is there? Whencharacters eat in movies, their meals can be heightened with crisp sound design as drinks are poured, and salivating close-ups over sizzling food. Besides looking delicious, meals can represent deeper themes of the story at hand.The Menu(2022) serves up gourmet dining as a revenge fantasy enacted by the irate food service industry. InThe Taste of Things(2023), the preparation of cuisine dishes is just as passionate as the connection between two older lovers. And when it comes to food in the films of directorLuca Guadagnino, his on-screen characters aren’t foodies when they pick up a peach or churro.The items on Guadagnino’scinematic menuare symbolic of the characters embracing or resisting their sexual awakening and other desires.
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A Seafood Dish Begins a Passionate Affair in ‘I Am Love’
Luca Guadagnino had already madetwo featuresbefore 2009’sI Am Love, but this romantic drama is where he really developed his skills as a filmmaker of sensual storytelling. It centers on a Russian immigrant, Emma (Tilda Swinton), who has conformed herself to fit into the Italian aristocratic Recchi family. As the first part in Guadagnino’s “Desire” trilogy with standalone installments,I Am Loveuses food to incite Emma’s realization that she wants to break free of her unhappy marriage.She desires to have an affair with an aspiring chef, Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), who is also a close friend of her adult son, Edoardo Jr. (Flavio Parenti). But once Emma tastes the chef’s cooking, she can’t help but fall in love with the younger man. At the restaurant where Antonio works, Emma is served a prawn dish that is beautifully prepared.
The red dress she wears instills a romantic aura that only grows when golden light shines from the dish onto Emma’s face. The camera then moves in closer, while the restaurant’s lighting dims on everyone but her, allowing Emma this singular experience as she eats.The prawns are made to be an act of temptation for Emma,to escape from her obedient role within the Recchi family. She pursues an affair with Antonio and he shares her feelings. After they have sex, a new layer is given to the importance of food in this film. Emma shares how she needed to separate her Russian upbringing and culture when she married into the Recchi family. By doing so, she lost that part of her identity.
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A small piece of Emma’s past survived through her son Edoardo Jr. who loved the Russian fish soup, Ukha.But Emma feels that connection is weakening as her son joins the family’s company. The intimate and personal backstory of the soup is what ultimately reveals the truth. When Antonio caters for an event for the family, he makes the soup, and Edoardo Jr. links it to other instances he noticed that make him realize his mother is cheating. A tragedy soon occurs, pushing Emma to finally take a stand on what she wants.The ocean connection to the prawns and the fish soup represents Emma adrift in the life she has conformed to and her bold attempt to enter uncharted watersby accepting a liberating future with Antonio. He’s a chef who understands how sentimental food can be, handling meals with a seductive hand, but there can be a darker side.
InA Bigger Splash(2015), the second chapter in the Desire trilogy,Guadagninocaptures an uglier portrayal of preparing a meal. It’s seen when Harry (Ralph Fiennes), the ex of famous rock star Marianne (Swinton), arrives uninvited to her vacation with her boyfriend. Harry’s invasive personality is everywhere, such as when he takes over the kitchen, slicing into a fish and digging his hands inside to pull out the organs. This preparation of a meal is nowhere as magnificent as what Antonio does inI Am Love. It’s also more limited when it gets shown on-screen, unlike the last part of Guadagnino’s trilogy where the filmmaker returns to giving a bigger emphasis on food and its role in the plot.
What Does the Peach Represent in ‘Call Me by Your Name’?
InCall Me by Your Name, food details key moments for the characters. Oliver’s (Armie Hammer) acclimation to the Perlman estate begins with making a mess of a soft-boiled egg for breakfast until he eventually learns how to open the fragile shell with ease. The longer he stays and gets comfortable, the closer he gets to Elio (Timothée Chalamet).But it’s the fruit symbolism that is surely what viewers remember the most, and the fruit trees on the Perlman estate turn it into the perfect garden. Fresh apricots can be plucked and made into juice, but while others enjoy them, the peaches on the property become important for Elio.
When Elio experiments with a juicy peach, he’s really exploring his sexualityas he’s grappling with his feelings towards Oliver. The camera doesn’t drift away from Elio as he finds a new way to enjoy the peach, not like how the camera pans away to a window when he hooks up with Oliver. The peach is turned into a sex toy, but there’s more to it. Just look at the nuanced details in Chalamet’s performance. Viewers can spot the curiosity that builds up within Elio when his eyes travel to find the fruit. The music from a nearby radio makes this feel like a love scene. Being intimate with guys is a new experience for Elio. Because of this,the peach, already a sensual icon if the emoji has anything to say about it, becomes aqueer symbolof his sexual awakening.
In Guadagnino’s next picture, 2018’sSuspiria, food isn’t given the same beauty. Like what the filmmaker did inA Bigger Splash, there is an ugly side to food when it’s used to help make the supernatural horror believable.
The ‘Suspiria’ Remake Uses Food to Ground a Coven in Reality
The meals that take place inSuspiriagive a sense of realism to the film compared to theotherworldly, surreal 1977 classic.Food is as integral to bringing authenticity to this version as the late ’70s events of the German Autumn. There’s an early morning breakfast where the coven votes on leadership, the camera watching in a long take. These are deadly witches, but they exist in a world that is not too different from real life. They wake up and gather for breakfast like the mortals outside the Markos Dance Company. Then the body horror strikes. Susie (Dakota Johnson) is the outsider who has arrived at the dance academy, showing herself to be a natural talent. But the witches have put their interest in her, demonstrating their powers by placing a dangerous hex on a fleeing dancer from their academy.
The spell breaks and mangles the woman’s body while energizing Susie.To get rid of the body, members of the coven swing hooks into the flesh and carry her awaylike they are butchers dealing with a slab of animal meat. In the evening, Blanc and Susie have a private dinner. Susie, the inexperienced newcomer, nibbles on stripped pieces of chicken, a gentle and cleaner way of eating compared to Madame Blanc, who devours a plate of chicken wings, tearing the meat off the bone with ease. Blanc is at the “top of the food chain” as a predator over non-witchy humans.
Having Susie eat chicken too, just served differently, hints at the later reveal that she isn’t an outsider and she will soon take her rightful place as the coven’s leader. Before that plot twist, the mundane dinner of chicken wings depicts a power dynamic between the two women.This ominous focus on food in a Guadagnino film goes more extreme when cannibalismis turned into an emotionally charged, tragic love story. A different kind of predator is inBones and All(2022), where instead of witches, there are young lovers who creep along the outskirts of the U.S., smelling and feasting on humans.
Cannibalism Is an Extreme Form of Intimacy in ‘Bones and All’
The Eaters can smell out their prey and when it comes to their “food,” eating is both pleasure and pain. Lee (Chalamet) catches a young guy from a fair as prey for Maren (Taylor Russell) and himself, killing the guy after Lee has jerked him off. While the guy dies choking on his blood, Lee bites into the flesh, unable to wait for Maren to hurry over.The title itself refers to the euphoric experience of consuming a whole individual, “bones and all,”and the sexual nature of the killings is obvious. From the guy Lee hooks up with at the fair, to the older man who keeps tracking Maren down,sex and death are interchangeable inBones and All.
Bones and Allis a disturbing story, but the cannibalism is not exploitative.It’s used to see how the young lovers, especially Maren, are moving into adulthood where the world can be ruthless. Maren isn’t living out a summer in Italy like Elio, and Elio isn’t hungry for Oliver’s flesh (not inthatway at least), but the two are teens who have reached a new stage in their lives — and it’s not easy to navigate. Oh, to be young, in love, and voracious cannibals.
The film reaches a horrific ending that is heartbreaking.Maren consumes a wounded Lee, per his wish,in adifferent ending from the book to keep Maren’s future ambiguous.It’s oddly tender when a dying Lee begs Maren to eat him. She finally does, biting into his chest, causing Lee to scream out in pain, but the scene is not shown as violently as the other attacks. Music takes over, shutting off Lee’s cries. Instead of seeing the flesh ripped off, Maren’s face covers what her mouth is doing. It blends the sexuality associated with food inI Am Lovewith the ugly intrusion ofA Bigger Splash; Gudagninio’s latest film,Challengers,uses phallic food to show how much the two leading men crave each other.
When Patrick and Art Share a Churro
Of the threesome at the center of the sports drama, Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) are the only ones not open about their urges toward one another. Still, they have emotionally charged scenes, andthe chemistry between O’Connor and Faist is undeniable. Early on, the camera has Patrick and Art constantly in each other’s space, but it’s not invasive like Ralph Fiennes’ character inA Bigger Splash. The interactions between the friends are playful, verging on being erotic, building the tension until they get close to Tashi (Zendaya) for a late-night hookup.
All three make out until Tashi lets the guys take over. The ending riff to the song byBlood Orangeis as intoxicating as the feelings the guys must be losing themselves to. It perfectly adds to the tennis metaphor that runs throughout the film: an audience (Tashi) watches as the players are in sync (Art and Patrick). When the friends realize they haven’t been kissing Tashi, they don’t react with any kind of internalized homophobia, and knowing this is their reaction, it should tell them about their repressed desires for each other. But it takes a while.
During their reunion match, he eats a banana, smirking over at Art. But the most memorable food scene has to go to churros. From the moment Patrick slides a stool closer to him for Art to sit on, it feels like a date. In a close-up,Patrick constantly takes control of the scene, lunging into the frame, feasting on his churro, and snatching Art’s, eating some before holding the sweet treat for Art to chomp on. It reveals how Patrick can easily be the one in control with confidence, something the insecure Art has trouble doing.It’s not until the ending that the two embrace their feelings for one another.
Both the churro and banana scenes follow in line withhow important food can be in the films by Luca Guadagnino.There is the seduction in seafood inI Am Love, to the sugary fried dough inChallengers, and there can be a dangerous side when a witches’ coven or young cannibals are included. All of these characters want something so intense that the world around them represents their feelings. Guadagnino doesn’t just rely on actors, cinematography, and other filmmaking tools to create moments of character development. He uses food to pull out their emotions too.
