the life aquatic

Saturday 29th June

Drenched

Murray is the star of Wes Anderson's “The Life Aquatic” and he hardly needs to crack an expression playing Steve Zissou, the autocratic oceanographer and has-been star of his own self-produced marine documentaries. Zissou is a weird mixture of Jacques Cousteau, Captain Kirk and Captain Bligh, but mainly the French legend Cousteau, to whose calmly paced and lugubriously narrated television shows the movie is a lovingly detailed tribute.

Like the dysfunctional Tenenbaums, the Zissou crew is family, a family that doesn't see anyone from the outside world and has developed its own inbred habits and mannerisms. The family's kit, craft and uniform are quaintly marooned in the 1960s of Cousteau, while Zissou's hated enemy and rival explorer Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum) luxuriates in state-of-the-art gadgetry. Willem Dafoe plays Zissou's trusty crewmember Klaus; Anjelica Huston is his semi-estranged wife Eleanor, "the brains behind Team Zissou"; and Owen Wilson is aboard as Ned, a huge fan of Zissou and also his illegitimate son.

The captain, with his old-fashioned ways, is pretty much washed up in the modern undersea world. But just as his career is about to go under, Zissou outrages naturalists everywhere with a quixotic new project. Team Zissou's much-loved cinematographer Esteban (Seymour Cassel) was eaten by a rare jaguar shark. So Team Zissou is going to track down this shark - and kill it. "For revenge," as Zissou crisply announces to his astonished public. This exciting mission is to be chronicled by a frightfully British magazine writer Jane Winslett-Richardson (Cate Blanchett), on whom Zissou naturally develops a monumental crush.

This is one of the most thoroughly and elaborately designed movies I have ever seen - the look and feel of The Life Aquatic, drenched in knowing eccentricity, can only be Anderson's own vision. He really does create an all-encompassing world of wackiness. The design of Zissou's rickety-rackety ship, the Belafonte, is a work of art in its own right. The captain takes us on a guided tour, and the ship's various cabins and state-rooms are laid open to us in cross-section. If The Life Aquatic were a prog-rock concept album (and in a way it is), then the map of this beautiful and strange ship would open out on a double-gatefold.

Like all of Anderson’s best films, “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” (the full title) it works simultaneously on multiple levels, and derives its sneaky power from the ways in which those levels intersect

CAST: Bill Murray | Owen Wilson | Anjelica Huston | Cate Blanchett | Owen Wilson | Jeff Goldblum

DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson

SET MENU | THEME: French

Welcome glass of Clairette de Die

Sole Meunière with new potatoes and French beans followed by Tarte au Citron with Creme Fraiche.

Programme:

6:00pm Event opens with welcoming drinks in the courtyard

7:00pm Dinner served

7:45pm Film starts

9:15pm Interval with snacks available

11:30 Bar closes

Times may vary

GIFT VOUCHERS

Little Lightning Gift Vouchers are a wonderful present and fully flexible to redeem against any event.

Please ask for further details : littlepopup@gmail.com

*PLEASE NOTE: We serve delicious two course set menus which are carefully prepared with local organic ingredients wherever possible and cooked on site and themed for each event, however we are unable to cater for specific dietary requirements. Occasionally we may need to adjust the menu depending on availability, as in our search for authenticity, this sometimes becomes too difficult.