Gestes du repas (1958)

Overview

This ethnographic film sends us the image of the man who eats, a stark look at Belgium. We spend about one-eighth of our days eating. Luc de Heusch films these repetitive gestures that seem trivial, yet reveal so much of a particular culture and a civilization. From morning to night, from the market installation to dinner, from the daily and fast meal to the feast, the ethnologist is interested in all social classes. Originally, an attempt of cinematographic ethnography, neutral and distant, intended to define the Belgians by the way they eat. In fact, Luc de Heusch films his contemporaries as if they were Papuans.