The Taste of Things (2023 | France | 134 minutes | Trần Anh Hùng)
Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) is the Napoleon of French cuisine. Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) is his cook, apprentice, and lover. Over twenty-plus years together, they’ve built an astonishing culinary and emotional partnership together at a stunning country estate. It’s the late 1800s in France, the Age of Escoffier is dawning, and the preparation, appreciation, and invention of food is serious business.
She prepares a sumptuous feast for him and his compatriots in gastronomy and serves them in a formal dining room. He later creates an ornate meal only for her served alone in her bedroom. Over long uninterrupted hypnotic sequences, Trần Anh Hùng captures the care, grace, and dedication in the kitchen that transforms food from simple sustenance to high art. With respect to Frederick Wiseman’s exceptional four hour documentary Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros and to Chad Stahelski’s “Sacre Coeur” stairway sequence, the year’s best gourmet food photography and French-set action choreography were both in this extraordinary culinary turn-of-the-century romance.
A great appeal of The Taste of Things is that it contains what are among the most alluring cooking sequences ever committed to film. But Hung’s mesmerizing structure is much more than sensuous wallpaper for foodies. The camera’s adoration of the goings on in the kitchen reflects the degree to which the couple’s deep commitment to appreciating the pleasures of food reigns supreme over all other concerns. Without words, it speaks to their nuanced partnership and its limits. Like the exquisite movement of pots and pans, the preparation of ingredients, it is an ongoing dance of autonomy versus consuming romance.
In the spaces between feasts, there’s a wondrous realm of human connections. Dodin throws himself into two pursuits: convincing Eugénie to finally become his wife and conceiving of a stunning menu to dazzle a visiting prince that will feature a humble pot-au-feu (the film’s original title). For her part, Eugénie resists his proposal for as long as she can while also setting about the task of finding and training an apprentice. Amid a fleeting and unspecified series of fainting spells, both concerns are eventually addresses, first via a clever dessert pairing and later via a young local gastronomic prodigy (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire, who makes an impression among these titans).
The plot is light, the dialogue is sparse, seasons change, life goes on. That’s the whole movie. C’est magnifique!
The Taste of Things arrives in Seattle theaters on February 14. Portions of this review appeared as part of our coverage of the Telluride Film Festival. Header image courtesy IFC.