The Taste of Things: Food and Love Pair Deliciously in Sensual French Drama
By Karen Gordon
Rating: A+
France’s submission to the Oscars, writer-director Tràn Anh Hùng The Taste of Things is a beautiful, entrancing, sensual movie. One of the year’s best, it’s a quiet marvel that lingers long after the end credits roll.
It’s 1885 in the French countryside. As the film opens a woman walks through a vegetable garden, collecting herbs and vegetables and then heads into the kitchen.
The woman is Eugenie, played with quiet elegance by Juliette Binoche. Sunshine floods the large kitchen of the house as she begins to prepare what is no doubt going to be a feast as the kitchen assistant Violetta (Galatea Bellugi) bustles around. But first, a simple breakfast.
The man of the house Dodin (Benoit Magimel) joins them, and Violetta introduces her young niece Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire) who she’s taking care of for the day.
After breakfast, they get back the business of cooking. Everyone, including young Pauline, moves around the kitchen quietly, focusing on the tasks at hand: a loin of veal is put into hot oil on the stove. A plate of crayfish boiled. The freshly harvested lettuce is plunged into boiling water. Dodin breaks from some work to help prepare the quenelle dough.
In director Tràn’s hands, these preparations are fascinating, hypnotic, and beautiful to watch. By the time Eugenie puts a turbot into a casserole dish filled with milk and lemon slices, there were tears in my eyes.
Who are these people? What is their relationship to each other? It’s about 15 minutes in before we start to get a sense of that… as if it mattered at that point. I could have watched them make the rest of the dishes.
Dodin is a famed gastronome, who serves these beautiful, multi-course meals in his lovely dining room to a group of male friends, all professionals. The men are also gourmands who savour and appreciate every bite and who admire Dodin’s knowledge and skills as well as the talent of Eugenie, who they clearly adore and respect. There’s so much genuine respect and familiarity here.
They want her to join them, but she demurs. Her focus is on preparing each course to perfection. It’s her vocation and her passion.
Eugenie walks lightly through the world but takes her work too seriously to step out of the kitchen when food is in the oven. She eats in the kitchen with Violetta and young Pauline, who they discover is a budding gourmet with a palate that astonishes both Dodin and Eugenie.
Tràn partly based the screenplay on the novel Le Passion de Dodin-Bouffant by Marcel Rouff, which was inspired by the life of French lawyer, author, and gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. And those familiar with the history of modern French cuisine may note that the movie places itself in this world of food, with references to some of the great innovators of that time, Antonin Carême and Auguste Escoffier. But at its heart, The Taste of Things is a love story.
Eugenie has been Dodin’s chef for 20 years. It’s clear he loves her, and that has grown from a respect for her talent and dedication over years. He wants to marry her. She is more elusive, but not out of manipulation of his affections.
There isn’t any artifice in this movie. Dodin isn’t a brute. Eugenie is an intelligent woman, thoughtful about her life, and wanting to have time to herself. She and Dodin work together in the kitchen, have meals together, relax in the garden in the evening, and are lovers. They talk like equals. Their shared passion for food and for excellence in its preparation is a bond.
The Taste of Things is rare, with a depth and maturity we don’t often see on screens anymore. It charts the connection of two mature adults who are at peace with themselves and each other. There’s a calm restraint to their relationship, and that adds to the film’s sensuality.
Location is another factor. Tràn shot not on a set but in a house in France, and that sense of being in a place that has been lived in and well used and cared for adds to the feeling of the movie. There’s so much time spent in the kitchen that it becomes like another character in the film. Cinematographer Jonathan Ricquebourg has done a beautiful job of capturing the quiet beauty of the place, the sun streaming in as steam rises from a pot. It’s a lovely moment.
At the centre is the luminous Binoche, one of the most wonderful actresses in modern cinema. Her gracious, grounded performance lights up the screen without dominating the movie. The other anchor is, of course, Magimel.
The preparation of the food, the quiet focus, and kindness with which these people relate to each other is a pleasure to watch.
Tràn won the best director award at Cannes for this movie, and you can see why. There is drama in the film, but Tràn doesn’t give into any tropes or narrative tricks. He doesn’t need to. By then we’re all in.
The Taste of Things. Written and directed by Tràn Anh Hùng. Starring Julette Binoche, Benoit Magimel, Galatea Bellugi, and Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire. In theatres February 16.