Barbecue
I loved Christopher Larkin’s scores for Hollow Knight and Silksong so much that I sought out his other work, which led me to this documentary film by Matthew Salleh. I’ll start by saying that Larkin’s score did not disappoint. It’s more ambient and understated than the epic tracks from the Hollow Knight games, but there are still moments of great uplift where the chord progressions layer in unexpected and satisfying ways. His music to me slots into the same space as another couple of my favourite contemporary composers, Philip Glass and Max Richter.
The film consists of chapters which each focus on a specific culture and its variation on the technique of barbecue, i.e. cooking something (usually meat) over or near a fire. We’re shown places and people from all over the world: Australia, the US, Mongolia, the Philippines, and many more. In between the shots of smoke and flames and glistening meat, there are talking head interviews and voiceovers by the practitioners of the art. What struck me is how often the film’s subjects say the same thing: that barbecue brings people together and creates a sense of community. Also, it’s implied that cooking with fire reaches into some primal and ancient part of humanity. It must have been the first cooking technique to have been invented, and it’s like an ancestral memory that everyone shares.
On paper, the themes of the film do sound a bit simplistic: it’s like, “Hey, we’re all the same deep down, and everyone loves to eat, so why can’t we all just sit down, have a meal, and get along?” But I think it works because the spoken messages are paired with a diverse series of beautifully composed images. From foggy forests in Japan where wood is gathered to make charcoal, to a desert refugee camp on the Syria-Jordan border where a lone shawarma shop represents home, the filmmakers are attempting to capture a broad range of images from around the world.
Also, it’s genuinely fascinating to see all the ways to barbecue that we as a species have figured out. My favourite was the Mongolian recipe of boodog, where an animal’s carcass is hollowed out, and rocks that have been heated on flames are stuffed into the shell. It’s almost comical to look at because the carcass puffs up like a balloon as the heat inside fills it with smoke and steam.
So yes, it’s a trite platitude to say “we’re all the same,” but to hear it said by people, while seeing how different they are, really brings the message home.