By Felix Lowe
Dans Le Noir?
30-31 Clerkenwell Green
020 7253 1100
** (food) **** (concept)
THERE'S something slightly disconcerting about sitting alone in pitch blackness, awaiting my starter while listening to nothing but a disco melody with the beguiling chorus: “I’m like fire, I’m like ice - was born to make love.”
Welcome to Dans Le Noir?, an enlightening restaurant in Clerkenwell where clients and serving staff are united by two things - the inability to use their eyes and listen to decent music.
The concept was born in Paris, where the flagship outlet proved a hit with its discerning and chic clientele. Sombre venues in Moscow, London and Geneva soon followed, although cretinous planning officials ended hopes of a New York diner after insisting on a fluorescent green exit sign in the main room.
You see, Dans le Noir? is not simply dining with the lights off, it is dining in total obscurity. Inside the restaurant, beyond intricate folds of dark curtain, eyes cannot adjust to the gloom as they can when outside even on the most moonless of nights. (A word of warning to frisky couples - there are infrared CCTV cameras, so behave…)
A blind waiter, Ryan, delightfully redolent of hand cream, led me to my table, where I was quick to learn the best ways of pouring water into a glass without causing catastrophe.
Still flummoxed by the music - can fire or ice actually copulate? - I was quickly transferred into a transient world of limitation and baffling dimensions. (Post-prandial chat with the management revealed that the ostensible open space in front of me was actually a wall.)
The food, it must be said, remains a bit of a lottery. Menus are pre-ordered by category (vegetarian, non-fish, non-meat or total surprise) but part of the excitement is precisely in being oblivious to what will turn up on your plate. This is perhaps wise, for had I known that my gristly starter was going to make me retch, I would have stuck to the bread.
My main course, however, was as delicious as it was varied, although I cannot give marks for presentation (or inform you what it was - house rules). Serious foodies may be best advised to steer clear of Dans Le Noir?, for a hefty £39 for three courses (not including wine) reeks of daylight robbery.
But eating is clearly not what it is all about. The most interesting aspect of the restaurant is its darkness, which forces you to observe through senses other than your eyes. While the room gets blacker and vaster, the senses of smell, touch and the power to hear are heightened.
It’s not to everyone’s liking, mind: among the chink of glasses, the dropping of cutlery and the frequent guffaws during my sitting, one couple asked to be led to the exit (where's that damn green sign when you need it?) before their food had even arrived.
Ryan told me it was because they were scared of the dark, but perhaps they simply over-heard comments about that nasty starter - cold veal’s tongue is quite possibly not to everyone’s taste.
Wednesday, 7 March 2007
REVIEW - Black out
REVIEW - The Illusionist
By Felix Lowe
Dir: Neil Burger
Starring: Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell
110 minutes
*
SPORTING a sinister goatee that makes him the spit of mind-manipulator Derren Brown, the usually brilliant Edward Norton goes through the motions as Eisenheim, a low-born but worldly-wise Viennese illusionist. Having impressed in his youth the aristocratic Sophie (a wooden Jessica Biel) with his uncanny knack of balancing eggs and making balls disappear, the two became sweethearts.
Years on, Eisenheim must deliver his biggest magical coup in trying to steal the object of his affection from her drunken fiancé, the boo-hiss villain Crown Prince Leopold of Austria (played by Rufus Sewell, the film’s saving grace). Paul Giamatti (Sideways) provides ubiquitous narration and manages to get his bearded face into virtually every scene as the chief of police in charge of a mystical murder case that involves them all.
The Illusionist suffers from being released just three months after The Prestige, another (far superior) film about turn-of-the-century magicians. Less forgivable is the film’s preposterous over-reliance on its surprise ending. So contrived and flimsy is this twist that it is worthy of director M Night Shyamalan. Instead the film is the work of debut director Neil Burger, whose only redemption is that he doesn’t know any better.
But for the final thirty seconds, this tired, dated, will-they-won’t-they love story serves absolutely no purpose except delivering for its PG certificate. With its toned down dialogue, prudish sex scene, and comical period dress, this could easily be a children’s TV drama. The twist adds momentary excitement and gives the rest of the film some kind of point. But any film that relies on retrospective appreciation is gasping for air. Maybe a more apt title would have been The Disillusionist.
REVIEW - The Science of Sleep
By Felix Lowe
Dir: Michel Gondry
Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alain Chabat
105 minutes, Spanish/French/English (subtitled)
***
AN EFFETE Gael Garcia Bernal plays Stephane, a Mexican illustrator who returns to Paris following the death of his father.
By day, the shilly-shallying twenty-something sees his creativity stifled in a calendar-making company filled with social misfits.
By night, his slumber centres around Stephane TV, a Blue Peter-style programme he presents in his dreams which acts as a portal into his confused mind.
Having been captivated by his provocative neighbour, Stephane soon realises that it is actually her best friend, Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), whom he loves. The two soul mates seem be the perfect match, but a series of blunders creates a tissue of petty deceit and droll misunderstanding.
As can be expected from the madcap director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, this film delights and infuriates in equal measure.
Essentially a study of Stephane’s interchanging dreams and everyday life, The Science of Sleep breaks down all boundaries of the real and the imaginary, and does so with vim and vigour.
Where the film succeeds is in recreating the distinct haziness and playful incredulity of dreams, producing some memorable comic turns and showcasing the most irritating boss since Ricky Gervais’ David Brent. But ultimately Gondry’s film is the stuff of dreams, a series of bottomless sketches and a largely unresolved plot. In that respect, at least, it remains faithful to its subject matter.