Director: Tran Anh Hung
Stars: Benoît Magimel, Juliette Binoche, Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire
The first course of Tran Anh Hung’s new foodie favourite is arguably the most delectable, if only for its sheer stripped-back simplicity. We’re in late 19th century France. Some rural château. Gourmet chef Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) and his cook of 20 years Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) are bustling with the preparations of another of their notorious meals, revered among the select few locals who share the pair’s passion for flavour. A grand vol-au-vent is in the creation. The camera circles the action intently as the meat is readied, the vegetables sautéed, the broth brewed. Steam plumes. Sauces splatter and sizzle on the hulking stove. Concentration is inferred at every stage as we swirl inside this preparation, all caught in a heady, romantic golden light. For 20 minutes this is all the film is, but it is intoxicating, triggering sense memories, inviting the audience to salivate.
The dully re-monikered The Taste of Things (original title La Passion de Dodin Bouffant) is a sumptuous feast for the eyes and ears. As mouth-watering a cinematic ogling of food as one has seen in many years, and an effortless accompaniment to such culinary classics as Tampopo, any number of Ghibli titles or The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover to name but a scant few. It touches down in an era of intense scientific curiosity – indeed, set on the brink of a revolution – and those interests are quite literally brought to the table. Bouffant’s creations are spoken of by his stuffed collective of gourmets in studious terms. A Baked Alaska is autopsied before us, while elsewhere Eugénie discovers the electric potential of using iron rods to yield greater crops in her garden. And yet, for this fervour there is also faltering naivety also.
Eugénie is clearly unwell, prone to fainting spells that doctors can’t fathom, which worry Dodin no end. The main course of the picture (and this writer’s favourite by far) sees Dodin turning his culinary expertise into a kind of reviving medicine. After one of her episodes, he puts together a special meal to both rejuvenate and woo his long-term cooking partner and love, as once more he asks for her hand in marriage. Here, more-so than at the beginning, a meal is designed around the palette and preferences of one person. It has focused intent. It’s romantic.
Dodin – wonderfully gruff and serious as portrayed by Magimel – is challenged by Eugénie to think of his efforts not as a scientist, but as a poet. The spiel he responds with marries the two temperaments in a manner almost Cronenbergian. For the briefest of spells The Taste of Things recalls the Canadian body horror auteur’s obsession with obsession. The intensity and voyeurism exhibited by Dodin in relation to food teeters on the absurdly, wickedly perverse. Visual rhymes get kinky. A wine poached pear becomes a synonym for Eugénie’s shapely derriere (and has Binoche ever been photographed so sensuously?). It’s a ledge Anh Hung might’ve approached as boldly elsewhere.
After being gorged like this, the desert course is surprisingly – but also inevitably – a little sour. Lumpenly telegraphed events take place with a disappointing predictability, leaving us feeling mildly bereft. The Taste of Things has a few narrative tapers like this. Don’t get too precious about Dodin’s combative attempt to impress a visiting Prince, for instance. It’s in the design of the piece – and reasserts the focus on the effort as opposed to the result – but it still leaves the viewer awkwardly unsatisfied. We’ve been stuffed, in the main, by Anh Hung’s desirous presentation of this food and this couple and their beguiling chemistry (Binoche and Magimel were in a relationship for five years at the turn of the millennium, and there are tangible traces of a shorthand between them) but exiting the movie our appetites aren’t quite sated as we might have expected.
If there’s a shock or surprise in the mixture, its the potential of one budding younger player; child actor Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire who plays aspiring apprentice Pauline, a girl with a savant palette and dark, doe-like eyes that suggest a future Anya Taylor-Joy in the making. The girl has presence before the camera, and one can’t help but wonder if we’ll be looking back and recalling The Taste of Things as the first time we saw her. There’s star presence, one senses.
All the elements are rich. Performances are great across the board, and the technical efforts are at least their match (all that honeyed sunlight…). The Taste of Things occasionally shows good humour about its pretensions (those napkins on heads…), but it also falls frequently into its own trap, and feels like a film Frasier and Niles might breathily reference while bumbling their way into Café Nervosa. A little pompous, a little precious, a little too bourgeoisie. As a turn-of-last-century romance it’s hard to fault. As a showcase of gastronomic delights it’s a feast. But there’s something missing in the space between those flavours that doesn’t quite balance the meal.
The Lost Highway Hotel 