HAVING THE TASTE OF DESIRE @HOT DOCS 2021

The oyster is an aphrodisiac known to give energy to those who consume them which heightens their desire. Whether that is for another human, more wealth, more success is all relative. The oyster is a unique delicacy symbolizing prestige that serves the affluent in a stylish and elegant manner. Our desire for this mollusc is mysterious and makes us curious as to what it means to have a desire.

Director Willemiek Kluijfhout goes in-depth about the oyster in Taste of Desire recently premiering at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival. She draws parallels of how desire and oysters are embedded in six protagonists around the world. They all tell their story of what role the oyster plays in their life and how it produces desire. Whether that desire is for the actual oyster or something that they want to attain in their lives is expressed in the film. Yet, things can never come so easy for all of them who all express their hopes, fears and desires. They all have a different story to tell but it intertwines seamlessly by Willemiek Kluijfhout.

The director follows Lotta Klemming in Sweden. She is an oyster diver who was told that she would never make it as one. Suffering from anorexia at a point in her life as well, she sustained her desire to become the diver she is today. She loves the journey of hunting for the oyster which is a delicate process. We see her dive to capture them and keep them alive for the vendors at the fish market. She pitches them saying that they are fresh and metallic tasting in which the vendors agree and buys her batch.

This has been a work in progress for Lotta throughout all these years of diving. This desire to reach this level of mastery when it comes to being an oyster diver does not come overnight. Lotta managed to swim out of her darkness of anorexia. Futhermore, cultivating her own way of living through farming and selling oysters. That same desire helped her form a new relationship with her boyfriend after suffering the darkness from anorexia.

Kluijfhout stops in France to meet father and son duo and Michelin chefs Olivier Roellinger and Hugo Roellinger. They’re experts when it comes to the experience of eating oysters from all the sauces to the wine pairing. Its preparation for their guests in the restaurant is at the highest level. But it’s Olivier’s preparation for his son in the hospitality world that really matters the most.

It was Hugo’s desire to be one of the world’s top chefs that became a cause for concern for his father. Olivier did not want Hugo to make the same mistakes he did as a chef. But Hugo’s intense desire to be at the top of the world has taken time. Going from a Two-Star to Three-Star Michelin chef took Hugo eighteen years. The desire was always there and maybe it was best that it took this long.

The two are happy as a family can be when preparing, shucking and eating oysters. Willemiek Kluijfhout goes into more depth with her camera into an oyster’s structure during this sequence. The outside hard rock shell and alien-like inside with its wet amoeba-looking mantle are all filmed up close and it detail.

The audience also gets an idea of what loosening the oyster means. It’s like ruffling a skirt and Kluijhfout shows where this loosening happens within the oyster. When they are loose they slide right through the mouth along with all the added flavours. The process of eating an oyster is sexy even though they are still alive. This is why the oyster is the ultimate aphrodisiac that produces sexual thoughts and heightens sexual instinct.

There is nobody who exemplifies the sexual side of oysters better than New York burlesque dancer Angie Pontani. In her show, she wiggles her way out of an oyster in her skimpy yet sexy undergarments arousing the audience with sexual desire. Teasing her viewers with a dance similar to the way you loosen the oyster when you are about to eat it. It is about seduction and the show heightens the desire for nudity and sex just like what an oyster does.

Her desire is to have the audience desire her. Although, this becomes even more difficult for her as time goes on. She needs to raise her daughter to have the right morals, despite “dancing in her underwear.”

Across the world in Japan, Willemiek Kluijfhout focuses on Chitose Ohchi whose story is far different. She takes what is inside the oyster and makes more gain than that of Lotta. She looks for the pearls in oysters in hopes to have the best ones to make jewelry like necklaces. These pearls are from the deepest of oceans and are shown to experts in Japan who give them value. There is more of a business side to oysters in Chitose’s story. She tries to sell these to those who want to wear them to symbolize their status and wealth. While at the same time she is just trying to make a living for herself.

At the end of it, is writer Nigel Moore who is completely fascinated with the oyster. There are so many aspects of it that compel him to speak of it like gold. Which is almost like when the process of capturing them is just as difficult. And getting them to the point where you want to consume them is such elitist fare. He does not have much time left to write an appropriate book on oysters because he has cancer. Although, he does have the desire to explore the oyster from every angle. From the journey of capturing them to the experience of eating them is what intrigues Nigel. As well, its mysterious ability to seduce us to heighten our sexual awareness. This food is like no other.

What we admire here on FERNTV about Nigel Moore is his desire to write it and he’s okay if he doesn’t. Whereas, the others have a desire to do things but it is not okay if they don’t. It’s great that Nigel Moore recaps this documentary about oysters and desire and ties them all together. But he knows that deep down inside that desire changes for everyone at different stages in their life. For most it’s mandatory, for Nigel it’s an option.

https://www.willemiekkluijfhout.com/work/the-taste-of-desire