The End of ‘Belle Vie’ is Not the End of a Beautiful Life, or a Great Restaurateur (Movie Review)
Belle Vie
Rating: 8/10
Director and Writer: Marcus Mizelle
Style: Documentary
Time: 77 minutes
Review by Mike Szymanski
Belle Vie. Beautiful Life, “Belle Vie” is a wonderful sentiment. Enjoy life, keep things beautiful, and this is the philosophy of this restaurateur, his family, and the community he once created in Los Angeles.
Did you ever meet someone that you imagine you can become an instant friend with? That is how you will feel about Vincent Samarco.
He is a bombastic third-generation restaurateur with a lot of hope, a lot of joy, and a very positive attitude. His enthusiasm is infectious, and his joy of life is palpable even in this worse period of his career.
Director and writer Marcus Mizelle picked up the camera at precisely the right time to follow Vincent as simply one very tragic example of how the pandemic has closed some of the great community spots in Los Angeles, and ultimately an example of what has happened all across the world.
It is a period where 100,000 restaurants in the area were closing, and even worse, in Los Angeles, one in three were saying they would either have to permanently close or move to another location.
We follow Vincent through his great success when he opened in August 2016 to much fanfare. He had created a success and a community very quickly in a neighborhood that needed it.
“I’m located on Wilshire Boulevard between Bundy and Barrington. I am in between a McDonalds and a Kentucky Fried Chicken and people are waiting in line to buy crappy meat and where they put cardboard in their French fries,” Vincent says.
He built everything from scratch, including the furniture. He reformed a diner that was there from the 1960s and proudly kept up a family tradition of owning a restaurant that both his father and grandfather did successfully. This was the first in the United States.
He brought over his friend from France, a chef, Cedric Nicholas, and the food looked scrumptious, with a rotating menu that included duck, pork, octopus and specialize French dishes, all with a good glass of French red and a lot of singing.
His wife, Ornella, talks about meeting Vincent “and time stopped” and she talks about Los Angeles as somewhere that she feels overwhelmingly at home.
They brought live music to the neighborhood that never had it, and they had regular customers who popped in many times a week.
The restaurant was thriving, practically full every night, and it was working “like a beautiful clock,” Vincent says. “Then the pandemic killed everything.”
As everyone tried to deal with the qarantine, the restaurant followed Covid restrictions, but pointed out that it was far more restrictive in Los Angeles than most other parts of the world. A restaurant has to be at 70 or 80 percent capacity to remain a viable business, but they were only making about 25 to 30 percent on take-out orders.
To cut corners, Vincent went himself to shop at the local Farmer’s Market to get fresh vegetables, and then he started building an outdoor area when outdoor dining was allowed. He didn’t get the proper permits or asked for a small business loan, he just wanted to re-open for his customers.
One regular patron, Trenten Clark even helped out with the construction, and Vincent said he would pay him with a case of wine for helping. Trenten wanted to do anything to help the restaurant stay afloat.
A film crew goes to Southern France to interview Vincent’s grandfather, George Samarcos ,who is still alive and often sends quaint care packages of food and books to Vincent. His grandfather tells him to change his job as a restaurateur. “It’s a slave job,” he warns. Yet, his grandfather has nightmares still about being in the restaurant business and the anxiety that is involved.
French cuisine, Vincent explains, is not like pizza pasta. It’s not like Chinese food or Japanese food, that’s easy to find or import.
Vincent has a wonderful philosophy that people love to congregate, from the time they were cave people around a fire. People will congregate again, it is in their nature.
Vincent loves Los Angeles, and knows that many people love to hate the town. “Los Angeles people are welcoming and generous,” he says and very much means it when he says “it is fun to be part of this community.”
When they built an outdoor patio to conform to pandemic rules, a local artist Danielle Hutchens painted a mural in the back, where people could also write their frustrations. One of the parts of a mural has a cute Dachshund in it, and it became a work of art itself. They were saying that the restaurant was more Parisian than ever before because now you can bring your dog to the outside area.
When Vincent finally calls his attorney to declare bankruptcy, he takes down the photos of his family and friends from the walls and talks about each one. It is very poignant, but not necessarily sad.
Facing $400,000 in debt, Vincent concedes, “I’m tried of fighting, I’m holding on, holding on.”
This story of the times was a nominee for Best Documentary at the 2022 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and it’s winning accolades everywhere. The director followed the family over 35 days throughout 10 months of this restaurant family, and captures a remarkable and beautiful story. It also introduces and amazing character who reminds you to look on the bright side and remember that “Life is beautiful.”
This is an inspiring documentary that captures a victim of the pandemic in a heartfelt and realistic way. It’s done with class, dignity, fun and spirit.
Even until the very end, even though I knew better, I hoped that somehow Belle Vie was still around and that I could call all my friends and go there, and we could meet and toast Vincent and Ornella.
I wanted to be part of the community I found out about only through this movie. Even though it is not far from where I live, it was a secret in Los Angeles I never got to know.
But it’s gone. The McDonald’s and the KFC are still there on that part of Wilshire, however, but Belle Vie is gone.
C’est dommage.
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