[ad_1]
Juliette Binoche prepares one elaborate dish after another in The taste of things.
Stéphanie Branchu/IFC Films Premiere
hide title
toggle title
Stéphanie Branchu/IFC Films Premiere
Juliette Binoche prepares one elaborate dish after another in The taste of things.
Stéphanie Branchu/IFC Films Premiere
I saw for the first time The taste of things at 8:30 a.m. at a press screening at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Like many other journalists, he walked around jet-lagged, bleary-eyed, hoping that what he was about to see would at least keep me awake. He did it, and then some.
In the opening moments, as I watched Juliette Binoche wander through a rustic 19th-century French kitchen, whisking eggs into an omelet, my stomach began to rumble and I wished I’d had more for breakfast than an espresso. Eventually I was not only fully alert but absorbed as Binoche prepared one elaborate and delicious dish after another: a roast beef tenderloin, a milk-poached turbot, a glistening baked Alaska.
For about 40 minutes, he cooks, cooks, cooks in a superbly directed sequence that unfolds with very few words and no music: just the sounds of butter sizzling, broth bubbling, and utensils scraping against dishes.
The taste of things is, in every sense, a movie feast: a gastronomic tour de force that can be accompanied by culinary classics such as Babette’s party, Like water for Chocolate and Tampopo. It’s also one of the most heartfelt romances to hit the screen in a long time.
It is 1889 and Binoche plays Eugénie, who lived and worked for years as a cook in the home of a famous gourmet, Dodin Bouffant, known throughout France as “the Napoleon of the culinary arts.” She is played by Benoît Magimel. Both Eugénie and Dodin have dedicated their lives to the search and perfection of culinary pleasure, something that is demonstrated in the ease and confidence with which they move around the kitchen.
Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel in The taste of things.
Stéphanie Branchu/IFC Films Premiere
hide title
toggle title
Stéphanie Branchu/IFC Films Premiere
Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel in The taste of things.
Stéphanie Branchu/IFC Films Premiere
We can also see that they are deeply in love; In fact, it’s hard to say where their love for food ends and their love for each other begins. For years, Dodin has asked Eugénie to marry him, but she doesn’t see why their years-long commitment to each other requires the official blessing of marriage. Most nights, he sneaks into her bedroom, at which point the camera discreetly moves away from her; After having seen Dodin prepare Eugénie a plate of oysters, watching them make love would be practically redundant.
The film was exquisitely written and directed by Trần Anh Hùng, a French Vietnamese filmmaker who, from his early films such as The aroma of green papaya, has always delighted in captivating the senses. His script, taken very loosely from Marcel Rouff’s classic 1924 novel, The passionate epicurean, it doesn’t have much of a plot. Instead, she calmly moves from one multi-course meal to another, watching as the dishes are prepared and eaten and eavesdropping on snippets of dinnertime conversation. It’s not the story she makes The taste of things so enveloping; it is the delightful atmosphere of unhurried indulgence and vicarious privilege.
As the film progresses, its tone takes on a more elegiac tone; This is a story about the passage of time and the sacrifices artists make when dedicating themselves to their craft. Eugénie and Dodin consider hiring a young apprentice named Pauline, who already shows promising signs of becoming a great cook, but, as they point out, it will take years of intense practice and study to reach her potential. Meanwhile, Eugénie is not in the best of health; She continues to have fainting spells, which she tries to downplay. It’s a reminder that nothing lasts forever, neither yesterday’s meals nor tomorrow’s discoveries.
The taste of things It’s not the only great food movie of the season. You may have also heard of Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros, Frederick Wiseman’s magnificent four-hour documentary about the operations of a three-Michelin-starred family restaurant in France’s Loire Valley. ridiculously, Menus-Plaisirs, easily one of the best nonfiction films of last year, wasn’t even shortlisted for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Meanwhile, France presented The taste of things for the international feature film category, but was ultimately not nominated. But the lack of official recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does not diminish the beauty and satisfaction of either of these two films. Watch them both, one after the other if you can, and don’t forget to eat in between.