Love the Film, Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers

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Since before I took this class I had always been attracted to movies or cooking shows. The way food is prepared and the passion that many of the chefs put into their delicious creations. Many of the recipes are part of the person’s culture and they continue to cook these recipes to commemorate an important part of their history. A good example of this is the film Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers, garlic being the center of every recipe but it’s of great importance to the different cultures that represented in this film. There are different cultures represented but the one that I liked the most and that in my opinion stand out the most was the Spain. When they talk to the man that comes from Spain he begins by explaining how garlic and tomato was the main food source for the people that lived in the fields during the Spanish War. Ashe was explaining his tone of voice showed passion and pride over how garlic is an important part of the food history of his country. Afterwards he is shown singing and dancing flamenco, a form of Spanish folk music, and garlic is everywhere he even has a necklace with a garlic charm. In addition to this later on in the film he is seasoning meat of course with garlic and other spices; when he is doing this flamenco music is playing in the background and the rhythm of his knife or cooking instrument follows the rhythm of the music. I was captivated by this scene just the art of cooking is beautiful and combined with the music was wonderful. This film was both participatory and expository. Participatory because the filmmaker is obviously interacting with the people that Les Blank is interviewing. Expository because it seems like a TV special on garlic, in many times there is a lot of B-roll of garlic and... ... middle of paper ... ...se as he was demonstrating how the garlic and tomato snack is prepared, the camera would zoom in on his cutting and seasoning of the snack then the camera would cut to a wider shot of him. There were other times in which jump cuts were used, and I believed this was used because it portrayed the partnership of the cook and the food. Like I mentioned before flamenco served as a great soundtrack when Spanish man was cooking but there were also other sounds and music that made up the film. There was also the sounds of the food hitting a hot pan or the sound the knife would make when it would hit the cutting board or the mashing of the various ingredients. There were also music representing other cultures like Mexican, Italian and other folk kind of music. All these sounds made the film so unique and it made me have more interest in the film and what it was exposing.

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