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Description:
Amuse Bouche: A Chef’s Tale (2002/2005)
An intimate, provocative fast paced portrait of Chef Barbara Lynch, owner of the winning establishment, No. 9 Park, Boston. "Amuse Bouche" takes you behind the scenes from the ritzy kitchens around the globe to the humble South Boston neighborhood from which Lynch hails. A true-grit inspirational tale of a woman who overcame poverty, depression, oppression and social stigma to rise through the ranks of the competitive but fulfilling culinary world.
Awards:
• Best Domestic Doc at the Wine Country Film Festival
• Grand Prize, Providence Award at The Rhode Island International Film Festival
• The SASA Award, Unicef Film Festival, Rome
MARYANNE GALVIN
Director / Writer, MG Productions
Her films have won awards at numerous independent film festivals and have been broadcast and distributed widely. Galvin has also written, directed, and produced three educational training videos for mental health and law enforcement professionals. She holds a doctorate in psychology from UMass Amherst and the MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College, Boston.
MG Productions • 1112 Boylston Street #163 • Boston, Massachusetts 02215
617-266-0884 • Fax: 617-268-4749 • info@mgproductions.biz
Portfolio:
Films by Maryanne Galvin:
• What's Going On Up There?
• As Is: A Downsized Life
• The Pursuit of Pleasure
• High, Fast and Wonderful
• Amuse Bouche
• Thanatos Rx
Movie Review:
By Jan Lisa Huttner
Managing Editor, FILMS FOR TWO: The Online Guide for Busy Couples
witaswan@msn.com
AMUSE BOUCHE, a 2002 doc by filmmaker Maryanne Galvin, is the smart, heart-warming story of a woman who overcame all the odds to become one of Boston’s most prominent restaurateurs. Barbara Lynch grew up in a rough neighborhood, where she learned a great deal about poverty and despair, and almost nothing about luxury and refinement. Galvin allows Lynch to tell her story with a methodical discipline that has obviously served her well in the kitchen. As is the case with most successful docs, the director clearly gained the trust of her subject. The narrative is spare, the scenes are short and to the point, and the flow of events is compelling.
Lynch is definitely not the type of person who wallows in misfortune even though she does admit that at one point in her life she became overwhelmed by self-doubt and succumbed to severe depression. Therefore Galvin must find a way to show the things she knows she cannot ask Lynch to describe on camera. Her solution, to insert animated sequences that gently imply hard truths, is the right one; in this film we really don’t need explanations in all their ugly detail. AMUSE BOUCHE is not about the incidents that almost brought Lynch down; AMUSE BOUCHE is about Lynch’s determination to put these incidents behind her and make a success of her life.
Even if we’ve been to Boston, out-of-towners are not likely to know much about the various restaurants Lynch worked in as an apprentice, nor will we recognize most of the names of local celebrities on the culinary scene. Therefore, Galvin has to show Lynch’s progression through various kitchens in a way that indicates they’re becoming more and more upscale. By the time Lynch finally opens her own restaurant, No. 9 Park, she’s ready to extend what she’s learned about “good taste” from the kitchen to the dining room. The space she designs for No. 9 Park is warm and inviting, but also restrained. Like Lynch herself, the atmosphere has a certain dignified reserve.
There can be no greater compliment to a filmmaker than to want to keep watching after the credits roll. After spending 30 minutes with her on screen, I wanted to know more about Lynch and what had happened to her since 2002. Had she made a go of it in a notoriously difficult, male-dominated field? The answer is definitely yes. According to a recent article in the Boston Globe (dated March 4, 2007), Barbara Lynch now has two more restaurants as well as a catering company, and she is in the process of developing a fourth restaurant near South Boston’s new Institute of Contemporary Art.
Bravo, Barbara Lynch, and congratulations Maryanne Galvin: first you spotted a winner, and then you did a great job of telling her story.
AMUSE BOUCHE: A CHEF’S TALE, released on DVD in 2005, is a 31 minute documentary. (English. No subtitles.) Note that, according to the website Wordsmith.org, an “amuse bouche” is defined as “a tiny tidbit to keep you happy while you are waiting for your first course to come. It gives you an idea of the chef's approach to cooking and the restaurant's attention to your appetite.”
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