A globetrotting cinematic exploration into the seemingly modest world of the oyster, director Willemiek Kluijfhout’s engagingly meditative film follows six very different people all motivated by their affection for, and connection to, the oyster. How it inspires, entrances and defines these personalities helps give the film a fascinating and unusual narrative.
Diving into the sensual and deepening connection between the sea, oysters and the protagonists’ increasing quest for self-fulfilment, the film veers between gentle lyric and stunning visuals as well as using the mollusc as a philosophical ode to oysters and the lengths people will go to satisfy the desires that both drive their ambitions and feed their frustrations.
Kluijfhout has dabbled in this territory before – with her 2017 film The Naked Oyster and in 2012 she made L’amour des moules – but this an altogether more philosophical work.
The oyster has long been associated with sexuality and lavishness, but the film uses it to act as a metaphor to explore human desires and drives, linking stories of a New York burlesque dancer, two French Michelin-starred chefs, a troubled Swedish oyster diver, a Japanese pearl maker and a terminally ill English psychologist planning to write a book about the oyster.
While the seductiveness and erotic qualities of the oyster are referenced liberally, The Taste of Desire never overplays any simplistic sexual references, but instead charts the connections these very different people have with it. Their stories interweave throughout the film, allowing their very different characteristics to develop and be subtly defined.
Lotta Klemming is a young Swede who suffered from various issues and worries (she decided to become anorexic as a “challenge”) as a teenager, but as a young woman has found solace and a calling living by the sea, diving for oysters. French father and son chefs Olivier and Hugo Roelinger juggle the desire for Michelin star acclaim while working to protect the sea and the oysters.
New York burlesque dancer Angie Pontani performs as the ‘Oyster Girl’, a traditional burlesque act (“she lies waiting for the mating” as the routine describes the character) and describes how being a mother has changed her attitude to life and performance, while Japanese jewellery designer Chitose Ohchi makes her designs from imperfect pearls, working with Japanese oyster farms to find pearls for her necklaces and earrings.
Meanwhile, Swedish-based English psychologist Nigel Moore, who is terminally ill with cancer, wants to try and finish his long-planned definitive book about the oyster before he dies. “I’m interested in the paradox they seem to evoke,” he says. “Dull and ugly on the outside and inside silky smooth. The fact that they change sex is the greatest paradox.”
The characters all have their own special connection to the oyster, and as the film weaves between them they reveal their ambitions, desires and existential concerns. While it references ‘desire’ in its title, the doc is as much about the fears that drive these characters.
A lyrical voice-over by Catherine Somze (dubbed ‘voice of desire’ in the credits) overlays delicate visuals and works well alongside the immersive sound design, helping draw together Willemiek Kluijfhout’s intriguing film (she is indicated as W.J.A. Kluijfhout in the credits) that resonates as a quest for fulfilment.
Netherlands, 2021, 87mins
Dir Willemiek Kluijfhout
Production Cassette for Timescapes, Magellan Films, Halal
Producer Olivia Sophie van Leeuwen
Cinematography Remko Schnorr
Editor Saskia Kievits
Music Tuur Florizoone
With Angie Pontani, Lotta Klemming, Olivier Roelinger, Hugo Roelinger, Nigel Moore, Chitose Ohchi
