A romance of 19th century France, in which a famous chef comes to rely on his female assistant to carry out his culinary ideas.
Food films: movies that tell stories about cooking and eating, are a popular genre. When I think of the best ones, Babette’s Feast and Tampopo immediately come to mind. There are others. Now we can add The Taste of Things, from Vietnamese-French director Trần Anh Hùng, to that list.
The Taste of Things begins at a French country estate in the late 19th century. Eugénie, an older woman played by Juliette Binoche, is smiling while she prepares a meal. First she makes an omelet that she shares with her two young assistants, Violette and Pauline, and the imposing middle-aged man of the house, Dodin Bouffant, played by Benoît Magimel. They then get to work making a lavish multi-course meal. Amazingly, this process takes up about a third of the film’s running time, with the camera continually gliding between the different dishes as they’re meticulously composed, including: consommé, a delicious broth to start things off; oysters with caviar; turbot with hollandaise sauce; veal with braised lettuce; Baked Alaska for dessert—the emphasis is on the careful (and joyous) cooking, more than even the food itself, which we do see as it’s placed in pans or pots, stirred and added to, cooked in oven or stove, in loving detail and gorgeous cinematography by Jonathan Ricquebourg. It’s quite clear, by the way, that this is not a vegetarian film.
After a while we can figure out what’s going on. The incredible meal is being made for a gathering of Dodin’s friends in the dining room, distinguished looking men in suits, including a doctor and other affluent professionals. Dodin is a famous master chef, among the most prestigious in France. He is given to interesting philosophical statements about eating: for example, “wine is the intellectual side of a meal.” Is Eugénie his wife? You might think so at first, but we discover that she is in fact Dodin’s long-time assistant. She was a cook long before she met him. At this point she excels at turning his culinary ideas into reality, surpassing Dodin in her skills in that regard. They sleep in different rooms, but she sometimes lets him share her bed. Will they get married? She says she doesn’t need it.
Anyway, going back to this long beginning meal, we see the various courses served in the dining room while the cooking in the kitchen continues. As Dodin and his guests slowly consume each delectable portion, we (the audience) experience the pleasure of the food vicariously. Later they all go into the kitchen, saying that Eugénie should have joined them, to which she replies that the cooking is her form of conversation.
There is a lot more to the story. We are treated, for instance, to a marvelous sequence where Dodin cooks for Eugénie when she becomes ill. The preparation of food, we see, is an expression of love.
Trần Anh Hùng is an artist of the sensuous, which you can see in all of his films. This movie is never dull. I was amazed at how quickly the time went by. Binoche and Magimel, who were actually married at one time, have aged perfectly into their roles. The Taste of Things played in theaters earlier this year, but my chaotic schedule only allowed me to see it now that it’s streaming and on DVD.
