As the pandemic becomes an increasing part of cinematic as well as social history, more films have appeared either made during the early days of Covid-19 or dealing directly with the event that upended most of our lives. Belle Vie, a new documentary from Marcus Mizelle, looks closely at the individual impact of the changing rules and regulations that forced so many businesses to close in the face of economic and social uncertainty.
Belle Vie follows Vincent Samarco, a third-generation restauranteur whose small French restaurant, Belle Vie, on Wilshire Boulevard acts as a gathering place for the neighborhood. When the pandemic hits, Vincent’s life and business is thrown into uncertainty, as he struggles to keep his restaurant functioning and his workers employed in the midst of changing safety precautions. But while the pandemic is certainly the central conflict of the story, Belle Vie is more about the human need for community and engagement over a good meal and a glass of wine.
At base, Belle Vie is an individual story, but it explores the reality of small business owners during the early days of the pandemic, when rules about distancing, indoor and outdoor spaces, and mask mandates kept changing, sometimes from week to week. The expense and heartache of keeping a small restaurant afloat during this period points to how easily various governments abandoned the lifeblood of the cities, exhorting consumers to order out or eat outdoors without providing real support to keep businesses alive. While Vincent’s experience is unique to his circumstances—his immigration status is dependent on keeping the business functioning—the underlying anger, fear, and frustration are not.
Yet the film doesn’t focus on the pain of trying to manage a restaurant in deeply unusual circumstances. Rather Vincent exhorts the philosophy behind managing a restaurant for joy rather than strict profit; he delights in the engagement of the community. Mizelle chronicles the late nights, jam sessions, and wine tastings that make up Belle Vie’s past, reminding the viewer of what we loved about small restaurants in the first place. Belle Vie does an excellent job of making the viewer invested in the outcome as well; Samarco is a likeable screen presence, a French immigrant whose goal is to bring the community together over good food and wine. And despite the heartache of the pandemic, that joy of community remains.
Throughout Belle Vie, Vincent reiterates that the experience of dining will never really go away, that the community formed in small restaurants and in homes can’t be replicated by big conglomerates. Sitting between McDonald’s and KFC, Belle Vie acts as an oasis for the neighborhood, a gathering place that is as much about its ambience and the people who run it as it is about the food itself. There’s an inherent optimism and faith in humanity at the base of Belle Vie, that the human need for community and connection over a good meal will always be there. Given the doomsaying of the past few years, this film is a lovely spark of hope.