Ratatouille

I was very impressed by the new animation feature film, "Ratatouille". As a student of literature, I could easily carry over the ideas that were voiced in the film to the realm of literature. In fact, it reminded me of a comment made years ago by Professor Bahram Meghdadi who suggested that a great writer is like a great chef, knowing how to combine the ingredients to create art. There were some who objected to this remark at the time, but I realized rightaway that he was dead on. After all, there isn't anything new under the sun and it's only a new touch that can make a difference in things. When James Joyce at the beginning of his Portrait talks about a GREEN rose, he is making a point: that Stephen Dedalus was capable from an early age of viewing the world through his own artistic lens. A green rose might not exist in the outside world, but can easily come to life in the artist's imagination.


What was also interesting about "Ratatouille" was that the real artist can never be a Herdenmensch, for he is not a part of the flock, but apart from it. S/he takes the path "less traveled by" and refuses to follow the norm. Usually, it requires great strength to part from the norm, for as Bernard de Clairvaux (1090-1153) reminds Pope Eugene III: "Qui hoc facit quod nullus, mirantur omnes" ("He who does what no one else has, (makes) everyone wonder," and in so doing, becomes, oftentimes, uncomfortably conspicuous.

The critic in "Ratatouille", who was rendered even more authoritative by Peter O'Toole, upon savoring a special dish prepared by a chef of the most humble origins, is transported in time, bringing to mind Proust's "les petites madeleines" episode in A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. It is the characteristic of true art to transport its audience existentially, if not, temporally. In the case of Anton Ego, the transportation is more like a transformation. After experiencing the taste of uniqueness, he is reminded of his youth, his mother, his origins and thereupon feels internally transformed. I believe one of the major highlights of the film to lie in Ego's own artistic review. After all, "it takes one to know one." The artist, in offering himself to the world, makes himself vulnerable, but in the end, "critquer c'est facile, mais l'art difficile," and Ego is well-aware of that.

Though everyone can cook, not everyone can be THE cook. The same applies to many other arts. However, what all arts have in common is their connection to the sublime and that is what makes us move to the core and renders our lives worth living on this otherwise dreary planet.