I have seen this film several times and it continues to inspire. The rap on the movie is that it is just a conversation between two guys, Andre and Wally, in an upscale restaurant. But it is much more. The short segments with Wally talking to himself that begin and end the movie are significant contributions.<br /><br />The initial scenes with Wally on the way to the dinner are cleverly done - they give us enough information about both Wally and Andre to place the dinner conversation in context. Wally is a struggling playwright trying to make ends meet. He muses to himself, "When I was ten years old I was rich. I was an aristocrat, riding around in taxis, surrounded by comfort. And all I thought about was art and music. Now I'm thirty-six and all I think about is money." Andre had been a close friend and colleague of Wally's, but now Wally was trying to avoid him. Wally had heard odd stories about Andre's weird behavior in the last several years. Just recently a mutual acquaintance had reported that he had seen Andre outside of a building weeping uncontrollably in response to the line "I could always live in my art, but never in my life," from the movie "Autumn Sonata."<br /><br />Wally enters the restaurant in a state of anxiety and his line of attack to get through the evening is to ask Andre lots of questions. He did not need to ask too many questions, since Andre dominates the first half of the dinner conversation, hardly allowing Wally in. Andre is quite a story teller and regales Wally (and us) with the bizarre experiences he has had over the last several years. Many of the experiences would indicate that Andre had become a bit psychotic, what with hearing voices, picturing birds flying out of his mouth, seeing passengers on an airplane as having animal faces and, during a Catholic mass, envisioning a huge creature that is half bull, half man, with blue skin, and poppies growing out if its toenails. But Andre seems to be a recovering psychotic, since he can describe his experiences lucidly. Anyone who has questioned how he is living his life (and who hasn't) will have to identify with Andre's search for a more intensely felt existence. Andre states that he feels the world is becoming more and more upsetting and that just operating out of habit is not really living, and many of his experiences have made him feel, for the first time, what it means to be truly alive. But then later he reverses himself and says that everything he has done is horrific and he is dubious about how he has lived his life for the past few years, feeling that he has squandered his life. Andre's contradictions make him believable.<br /><br />Only when Wally enters the conversation do we realize the depth and significance of this film. We are being presented with two dramatically different views of how to value life's experiences. Having been mesmerized by Andre's agile mind and storytelling ability Wally brings us down to earth. After listening to Andre I was convinced that the only way to experience life to the fullest was to seek extraordinary experiences. Listening to Andre was like listening to the prosecution's side in a court of law and saying "Yes, guilty!" only then to have Wally present the case for the defense and thinking, "Wait a minute, this decision is not obvious." Wally argues for appreciating the simple pleasures saying that you don't have to embark on a climb of Everest to feel alive. What could be more enjoyable than having a cup of coffee while reading the morning's paper?<br /><br />Filming in a cozy restaurant setting adds much. Many stimulating conversations take place in intimate restaurant environments, but, most often, not ones as well structured and free flowing as this one. Like many things in life, making something appear easy, like this conversation, requires much skill and planning. I wager that if you were to record even your most passionate and eloquent conversation you would be grossly disappointed when playing it back.<br /><br />How both Andre and Wally tend to ignore the restaurant staff as people illustrates the point Andre makes that we tend to react to people by the roles they play rather than as individuals. Andre comments that one of the reasons he gave up acting was because the average person is doing such a good job at it that he couldn't compete.<br /><br />There is much humor here. Some of Andre's tales are so outrageous and his timing is such that you can only shake your head and laugh. When Wally is served his quail entrée he remarks quite candidly, "God, I didn't know they were so small." I found myself laughing in recognition at the truth of many of Wally's observations.<br /><br />The final short segment, where Wally takes a taxi home and reminisces about things that happened to him in each of the buildings he passes puts a final punctuation mark on the persistence of his personality. His conversation with Andre has not changed him - he is getting extreme pleasure from his simple memories. And his dinner with Andre has been a high point for him, but probably not such a high point for Andre.<br /><br />In the end you will probably identify either more with Andre or with Wally, but not without much vacillation along the way.