Movie Review: The Taste of Things

 Movie Number 15 of 2024

The Movie: The Taste of Things (Original Title: La passion de Dodin Bouffant)

The Cinema: Village Cinemas, The Rivoli

Stars: 4

Je reve de la France. J'adore la France. Franchement, j'aimerais etre Francaise....

I'll stop writing in French now. I'm just showing off what 623 days on Duolingo will do for you.

This film made me want to go back even more. Yes, it's in French with English subtitles. Suck it up. 

This film is stunning to look at, not only with the inclusion of Juliette Binoche in one of the main roles. Juliette Binoche is my hall pass actor (or the actor you'd turn gay for). She's awesome. 

This is also a foodie's delight of a film, along the lines of films like Big Night (1996), Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (1994), Mostly Martha (2001), and Chocolat (2000). Just watching Eugenie (Binoche) and her boss / lover / husband, Dodin (Benoit Magimel) cook for two hours in an entirely French way is utter bliss. 

This is a very gentle film. You meet Dodin, a master chef and his cook, Eugenie in their middle age. Dodin is obsessed with food; Eugenie helps him get to the lofty places of French Gastronomy. Dodin comes up with the ideas. Eugenie executes them. There are a lot of characters that come over and eat, as the films teases out this central relationship and their love of fine food and wine. 

And really, that is about it. The film looks at this couple, their relationship, and their relationship to food. 

The thing that impressed me about this little film, where not very much happens, is that so much is going on while not much is happening. For one, there is next to no soundtrack, so instead of hearing music, you listen to the sizzling of meat, the flicks of the knife as vegetables are prepare, the simmering of sauces, the clattering of plates. 

The cinematography is sublime, although you barely see out of the walls of the chateau in which the action takes place - the bulk if this is found within the walls of the large kitchen, where we watch Eugenie, her housemaid, Violette (Galatea Bellugi) and the child who will soon be apprenticed, Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire, who looks like a young Anya Taylor-Joy) prepare these sumptuous meals. 

Anh Hung Tran's direction is flawless as he takes you on this journey of love, loss, obsession and redemption, with food being used as a metaphor for obsession and love. 

Piqued you interest? Well, there's next to no swearing (unless you speak French, then you get the odd 'Damn and Blast'). Nothing blows up. And you'll come out of this film salivating. 

Simply stunning. 

And my 623 days of Duolingo helped me ignore the subtitles for some of the film. 

And Juliette Binoche, at sixty, is still one of the most beautiful women in the world. Always has been, always will be. 

Go see this if you want to be transported to another time where things were just as complex, but much more simple. Mind you, any film that takes you to the Loire Valley for two hours can't be bad. 

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