In the pretentious restaurant’s scene, ‘Keanu Reeves’ (playing ‘himself’) asks, ‘May I ask, do you have any dishes that play with time, the concept of time?’ The waiter replies, ‘Ah! Yes, we have a meat course of venison sous vide. It comes with headphones, so you can hear the sound of the exact animal you are about to consume, illustrating nature’s life to death cycle.’ (For the uninitiated, what suggested was vacuum slow-cooked deer flesh.) When the dish arrives, Marcus observes all with headphones on, bewildered while frowning.
Jenny listens intently, not yet eating. Sasha eats on, indifferently. The camera focuses on Keanu. He pensively and slowly puts the fork to his mouth, to gentle bleating of the deer. Right after swallowing the first bite, he bursts into sobs, drinks some wine, shakes his head, leans back, looks up in exasperation. With palms open on the table, he exclaims, ‘I’m sorry!’ Almost immediately, he looks back down at the dish, and continues eating, with a normalised expression. This was perhaps the most thought-provoking scene in the ‘comedy’.
The truth is, all food naturally ‘play’ with time, since growth of both flora and fauna require time. But is unneeded systematic trapping, imprisoning, breeding, killing, cooking, selling and eating of animals ever natural? If yes, why do most humans avoid the mere witnessing of killing? Instead of just hearing bleating of healthy animals when well and alive, why not also hear their heartbreakingly desperate shrieks when facing the knife to be slaughtered? This would truly be complete witnessing of the cycle from life to death.
For even more vivid experiences, to fuller empathise with the forgotten plight of animals, see recorded or live scenes of their struggles when being murdered too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykTH_b-cXyE. With both sight and sound seen and heard, perhaps consumers will not bear to put even a single morsel of flesh into their mouths. And they will perhaps not order the next meat dish, no matter how fancily marketed it is. Otherwise, there is just, as demonstrated by Keanu, a ‘hypocritical’ spasm of ‘sorriness’, before resuming of meat-eating, without further reflection.
Related Articles:
You, ‘Animals And The Buddha’
https://thedailyenlightenment.com/2016/05/you-animals-and-the-buddha
As Taught By The Buddha: Mahāyāna Buddhist Veganism (大乘佛教之净素)
[or Maha-Veganism (大乘净素) for short]
https://thedailyenlightenment.com/2016/10/how-should-all-aspiring-for-buddhahood-eat-and-drink
