When cooking, Eugenie and her helpers Violette (Galatéa Bellugi) and Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire) move around Dodin, taking frequent breaks to taste the food. Indulging in a working meal of some new delight is done at a table full of vegetables where the produce must be pushed aside to make room for the plate. These cooking sequences are not pretentious but relatively elegantly quiet. They know what they are doing after decades of practice. This is a troupe of seasoned players, and there is no wasted motion. That they have as deep an affection for one another as they do the food is clear as they create their art together. Long stretches of the action present the cooking team moving like synchronized swimmers in the constrained confines of the farmhouse kitchen. There is minimal conversation, only that necessary to ask for ingredients or instruct the next phase of cooking. The cooking looks real, including lingering shots of prepared ingredients and dishes assembled in pots. When the food is plated, it is guaranteed to make you hungry, and you wish that you could dive in with the same gusto as the characters. The film redefines food porn, not to put too fine a point on it. We’ve watched Binoche cook before in Lasse Hallström’s 2000 film Chocolat. That’s a singular performance style for which she seems to have the market cornered. She moves around a kitchen with confident grace, a dancer between fire and time.
“Neither the meals depicted nor the viewing experience should be rushed.”
Filmmaker Anh Hung Tran has been delighting audiences with French films for ages. His first movie, The Scent of Green Papaya, from 1993, was nominated for an Oscar. He was born in Da Nang, South Vietnam. Following the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, he immigrated to France at age 12. He has an extraordinary sense of place and time that continues to evolve from his films about Vietnam to this latest period piece.
Interestingly, The Taste of Things has had a couple of different titles. In French, it’s called La Passion de Dodin Bouffant (“The Passion of Dodin Bouffant’), and before that, The Pot-Au-Feu (“pot on the fire”). The original title refers to a traditional French country stew of meat and vegetables that Dodin decides to prepare for a visiting dignitary. There are no stand-out ingredients, but he strongly feels it represents France. The genius of the dish is all in the quality of the ingredients and the execution. It’s a bit insulting that the North American market title seems to be an obvious and dumbed-down take, but that’s on the marketing team, not the filmmaker.
Viewers will need to slow down and relax into The Taste of Things. Neither the meals depicted nor the viewing experience should be rushed. Time is needed for the ingredients of the film to achieve a simmered state of perfection. Your patience will be rewarded.
"…redefines food porn, not to put too fine a point on it..."
