There are some movies you just fall in love with, and you can't help but tell everyone this is one of the greatest movies you'll ever see, because you sincerely feel that way. When I first saw "My Dinner With Andre" only a few months ago mind you, I felt like that. There was something about the movie that connected me right away, and I wanted to share it with the world.
I've seen "My Dinner With Andre" three times now, and it still gets a rise out of me, I still feel it is one of the most important movies made because it deals with things about life that I think are important. This is a selfish reason why I think you should see this movie, because obviously people look at life differently and what I think is important might not appeal to them. The movies I love however, are very personal to me, they in some way represent my perception, some movies have even had the power to change my perception, "My Dinner With Andre" came at a time in my life when I was having questions regarding life, love, art, and death, not to mention I felt a real kinship between the two main characters.
The film begins with Wallace Shawn a New York playwright on his way to have dinner with his friend Andre a theatre director. Shawn has a voice over in the beginning of the film as he's going to the restaurant about the state of his life. He's at a point in his life where art is no longer the most important thing, and he spends most of his time worrying about earning a living, every now and then being able to write a really good play. This will be the first time he will be seeing Andre in quite some time, and he's not really looking forward to it. He has heard rumours of Andre going to Tibet and having some sort of a crisis, Wallace is unsure what to say or do when he sees him.
The two meet for dinner, and Andre does most of the speaking in the first part of the film. He talks about his many adventures mostly abroad going through various experimental theatrical experiences you might say. Wallace is mostly passive saying the odd thing like "then what happened" or "tell me more". Andre continues with his story, and we are so entranced with it because he has such a flair for storytelling, it's widely descriptive as if we are there.
Some time after, Wallace begins to jump in to the conversation, and that's where I felt the film becomes more interesting. Here we have two men of the world each with their own philosophy about life. Andre talks more and more about the people he meets, and what they perceive the world to be. Wallace counters that sometimes with his own views, but sometimes their in agreement. Conversation turns to different areas from death, to theatre, to marriage, and relationships, I was fascinated from beginning to end I forgot more often than once that I was watching a film with just two people talking it was more important what they were talking about.
The script was written by Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, both men who seem to be playing themselves, in real life Shawn is a playwright/sometimes actor and Gregory is a director, and they are both friends who live in New York. They formed the script out of real conversations they had, recording each session and then picking out the ones they thought were the best.
The director of the film was Louis Malle, one of the founders of the French New Wave, he does the smart thing here by filming the script, once the two men are at the table, the film doesn't stray away from pretty basic medium, close-up, and two-shots of the actors, sometimes it cuts away to a very strange and cryptic looking waiter who serves their meal.
The real auteurs here are Shawn and Gregory who set out to make a very unique film that I don't think can every be copied. It's a simple idea, but what the characters say is what makes it remarkable. I still remember the first time watching "My Dinner with Andre" wondering why more movies weren't this interesting, this is just two men at a dinner table, yet I hang on every word they say more than any film made today. It works sort of like Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing", it serves as a wake up call but in a different way. "My Dinner With Andre" reminds us of the art of conversation which is really the only way we can know anything about ourselves. It's a precious thing that is taken for granted much too often in this world today, we know longer listen to ourselves, we more or less talk about nothing. The movies today are made the same way, they are more or less there to give us something to watch for two hours, and we forget about it as soon as it's over.
"My Dinner with Andre" came at a strange time when movies were making their transition to the blockbuster, and soon they would become too loud and noisy to make any impact at all. "My Dinner with Andre" is like a calm reawakening, it gets me out of my stupor and reminds me why it's so important to feel alive, it stays with me long after the movie is over, in fact when it ends, I feel a little bit sad, but it also makes me want to go out and have dinner with my own friends and hope we could have a conversation as meaningful as Wallace and Andre.
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