Have you ever watched a Thai movie? I recently watched a movie called Hunger. It is about a woman who leaves her family business and starts working for a restaurant called Hunger. In this post, I want to share with you my thoughts on the film. I'll share how it uses food as a symbol of social status, and how hunger is a prevailing theme in the film.
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| Photo Source: Netflix |
Most of the Thai films I’ve seen are of the horror genre, with a few romantic comedies between them. Watching a drama like Hunger was a different experience for me.
Plot
The movie is about a woman named Aoy, who cooks for her small family noodle shop in Thailand. She meets a man who encourages her to try out for a spot at the restaurant he works for called Hunger. Headed by the famous Chef Paul, Hunger is a restaurant where rich and famous people go to flaunt their power. Aoy and Chef Paul have a rocky start when she tries out for a job. But with her determination and cooking skills. she ends up impressing her and getting the job.
During her time working at Hunger for Chef Paul, Aoy gets disillusioned. She realizes that working for the restaurant is not all that she envisioned it to be. She also catches the eye of a big investor who sees her potential. He offers to start a new restaurant with her as the head chef, a position that she accepts.
As she gains a following in her restaurant, Aoy starts questioning her life. She is not happy with the life a top chef has to offer and decides to go home to her family. She announces that their shop will be her restaurant and that she will build her menu. The movie ends with her handling the as she begins to cook at home again.
My Review
The movie is a commentary on the life of the rich and famous and their constant hunger for more. There were so many quotable lines in the film about this. They often talk about hunger not only for food but everything else. There seems to be a theme about how winners are the ones who hunger the most.
Common Themes
Hunger is a big theme in the film, not only for food but for power and status. The movie shares the idea that the people who succeed are those who hunger for it. The film says that the more you meet that hunger, the hungrier you get, and that hunger does not end. That hunger could be a drive that pushes you to your goals. For Chef Paul, it was revenge on the rich people who maltreated him and his mother. For Aoy, it was a drive to prove that she was special.
The food served by the Chefs showed the hunger and power struggle between the rich and the poor. The rich loved to flaunt their status and power by having a famous chef cooking for them. This is in contrast with how the chef would make them eat in a way that would often show their greed. That was interesting.
For the rich, the hunger for power and fame meant hiring a famous chef like Chef Paul. It did not even matter if they did not even understand what good food was like or not. It makes you ask if the food was expensive because it was special or was only special because it was expensive. That was a big theme in the movie.
What is Food to Us?
Another question tackled in the movie was if we live to eat or if we eat to live. These days it seems that depending on your social status, it could go either way.
The poor end up eating to live, so it does not matter how good or bad their food is. As long as it could ease their hunger and fill their stomachs that was good.
For the rich, living to eat and using food to flaunt your status seemed to be the norm in the movie. It did not even matter what the food was. It was how and who presented it. They show this with how Chef Paul served soup from instant packets and still passed it off as a high-end meal. It seems that at the end of the day, the prejudice of the rich wins them over no matter how good or bad the chef could be. It was more about the chef’s image, the fame, and the presentation than anything else.
The Visuals
The visuals whenever the rich people ate all the decadent food did not seem appealing at all. Showing how excessive the rich were was part of many of the eating scenes. Instead of the viewer feeling a want or a hunger for what they ate, for me it left a feeling of disgust. Whenever these rich people had their meals in a stained and messy way, I felt an ick every time. The visuals, music, sound, and camera angles made the rich seem like monsters eating their prey. The meals seemed more like a scene from some macabre film than a drama. It reminded me of all the Thai horror films I’ve seen through the years.
Pacing
As good as the movie was, it is something that will not appeal to everyone. With the way most films these days are fast-paced, the slow vibe of this movie might bore them. It doesn't get to the point right away. It wasn’t that eventful of a movie. But I liked that it did pose some questions on life to the viewer if they are patient enough to watch until the end.
The Ending
Aoy wanted to be special, so she turned to Hunger to achieve it. But when things were not going the way she wanted, she moved to start her restaurant with her investor. It showed that her hunger for more was what pushed her to have her spotlight away from Chef Paul. I thought it was great that despite her success, she was still strong enough to step away from it all. I loved that when she realized that it was not the life that she wanted she did not hesitate to walk away. I liked that ending.
It was thought-provoking for me when Aoy realized that when she moved to her restaurant, it was not only the food she was selling. She was also selling herself and her values to satisfy the rich she caters to. This was highlighted in the final confrontation with Chef Paul where she did not agree with how her investor played dirty just so she could win over her former mentor/rival. She realized that this was not the way she wanted to live her life, and this was not the life she was hungry for.
By the end of the movie, she realizes that she has already proven herself to be special. She had become a famous chef and did not need anything more than that. She found her identity as a chef and had no fear about backing away from it all. It seemed like she took what Chef Paul said about having so much to lose to become special. She realized that she could not lose what mattered to her the most: her identity and her family.
The Actors
I am not familiar with the style of acting from Thailand when it comes to dramas. This is the first that I’ve seen in the genre. I'm not sure if I am a good judge of this. I felt conflicted about the acting of the lead actress (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying). She seemed a little too subdued for someone so determined. She seemed too stiff at times but you could tell that she had a certain about her. You could tell she was special.
Her love interest in the film felt a bit one-dimensional. I don't think it was necessary for her to have one. Chef Paul seemed a bit more intense, sometimes a little too much. I thought his role was all about being loud and strict to the point of violence. His character had a lot of anger. The film portrayed that as his driving force to success.
Other Comments
Like I mentioned earlier, I did not feel that Aoy needed that love interest to move her story along. The guy could have only played her friend and it would not have changed her story at all. It felt a bit forced to include a love story that did not seem to have proper development and closure to this movie.
I thought that the final cooking scene with Chef Paul seemed unrealistic. When he cut a beef carcass in front of many people and then cooked it over a flame and served it fast, I was skeptical. I may not be a chef, but I doubt that it would have been as easy and as simple as that. I’ve had roasted beef on a spit, and it took forever to cook. From the time it was under the fire to serving time took hours. So I was skeptical when that scene came out.
Hunger is a good movie for people who would like to have their thoughts and ideas on life challenged. I enjoyed watching it and it gave me a different perspective on how and why I enjoy food today.
This film is for people open to watching a Thai movie and are looking for something different. If you're interested, you can watch Hunger while it is still on Netflix. You don’t even have to worry about the language difference. They have English subtitles (and audio) available. Let me know if you want to watch it in the comments. Leave a message and tell me what you think about it if you do!
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