Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Trần Anh Hùng
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Benoît Magimel, Emmanuel Salinger, Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire, Patrick d'Assumçao, Galatea Bellugi, Jan Hammenecker
There are many things they say you should never do on an empty stomach:
take medicine, go to sleep, engage in physical activity etc. You can now add
watching The Taste of Things to that cautionary list.
Viewing Trần Anh Hùng's film with a rumbling tummy would be the
most masochistic act imaginable, as not since 1965's
Tampopo has a film been so hunger inducing. There are almost
as many close-ups of food here as of actors, and when its characters aren't
preparing or consuming food, they're speaking in poetic terms about the joy
of gastronomy. Releasing this in mid-February, when everyone has just begun
their post-holidays diets, is a cruel joke.
Inspired by Marcel Rouff's 1920 novel ' The Passionate Epicure',
The Taste of Things plays out almost exclusively in the 1885
French country manor of gourmet chef Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel). Known as "the Napoleon of the culinary arts," Dodin is the toast of the
aristocracy, who invite him to lavish parties and try to impress him with
their own menus. Dodin is far happier when working in his kitchen,
especially because that's where he gets to spend time with his long-serving
cook Eugénie (Juliette Binoche). The two are wizards in the
kitchen, as professionally in sync with one another as an ice-skating duo.
They're also lovers, though Eugénie would probably laugh off such a
label. Dodin has asked for her hand in marriage many times, but her attitude
is one of "why spoil a good thing?" Dodin doesn't seem all that convinced
about the sanctity of marriage himself, joking that "marriage is a meal that
begins with dessert." But it's 1885. It's what's done.
In an attempt to win Eugénie over, Dodin prepares a special meal that
will double as a marriage proposal. Eugénie's hesitancy may be
motivated by another factor. She's in poor health, constantly fainting, with
local doctors stumped by her condition. Through modern eyes we surmise a
life of being overworked is catching up with her. Eugénie savours every
morsel that enters her mouth, and takes equal joy in watching others consume
her food. She suspects she may not be able to appreciate such pleasures for
much longer.
The best type of filmmaking is that which seems so simple that you don't
realise you're watching something special until it sneaks up on
you. Anh Hùng opens his film with a roughly 30 minute sequence that
begins coyly and ultimately dazzles with the economy of its visual
storytelling. We're simply left to watch as Dodin and Eugénie prepare a
meal. The camera floats around them like an inquisitive bird as vegetables
are chopped, broth is stirred and meat is cooked. Barely a word is exchanged
between the pair. They've been doing this together for so long that words
are unnecessary. By watching how they move around each other, how they
glance at one another, we're left in no doubt that we're watching two people
who have been in love for a long time. In love with one another, and with
their craft (or art, as Dodin would no doubt argue). Dodin and Eugénie
are aided and observed by Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire), a
young girl whose precocious palate sees Dodin professionally adopt her as a
young apprentice. Pauline watches with the wonder of a child trying to
figure out how a magician makes his assistant disappear. Dodin's
housemaid, Violette (Galatéa Bellugi), helps out too, and she
seems to adore her work and the people she works for, her face gleaming with
the satisfaction of being a part of creating something special.
A cynical viewer might scoff at The Taste of Things and
dismiss it as a work of tone deaf bourgeois indulgence. It would be hard to argue against such an accusation,
given how it narrowly focusses on a small group of people living a life of
luxury in a time and place when 99% of the population were enduring a life
of misery. The subplot regarding Pauline's grooming as a future gourmet is
very charming until you think about how a child is working a full-time
job. Eugénie's belief that a woman's place is in the kitchen is jarring to our
modern sensibilities. But it's refreshing that a filmmaker has presented a
period of the past warts and all without feeling obliged to add commentary
from our more enlightened present. The characters of
The Taste of Things behave as they would have in the late
19th century. It's not easy to reconcile, but that's history.
Dodin and Eugénie are so charming that we can easily overlook how they're the sort
of people who might have faced the guillotine in an earlier era of French
history. Binoche and Magimel are former real-life lovers who have clearly
put their differences aside in that very mature French manner. This
offscreen relationship adds an extra layer to their onscreen dynamic. Here
are two friends and co-workers who failed as lovers playing friends and
co-workers wondering if they could succeed as husband and
wife. What's most distinctive about The Taste of Things is how
you don't really care as a viewer whether Eugénie accepts Dodin's proposal. Theirs is a love that doesn't require
fortifying by a ring.
Anh Hùng's film is also a rarity in cinema in how it explores the dynamic
that forms between co-workers. Most people spend as much of their waking
hours with their colleagues as with their own families, and yet few movies
indulge this truth. Watching a tired Dodin and Eugénie enjoying a glass of wine and good conversation after a hard day's
work, I was reminded of how many of the most meaningful conversations I've
had in my life have been with co-workers at the end of a shift. There's a
kinship you form with your co-workers in a way you never quite do with
your spouse or lover. "How was your day?" is a question you never have to
ask because you were a part of their day.
If there's an under-whelming course in the banquet that is
The Taste of Things it's perhaps the lack of conflict. There
are no ups and downs in Dodin and Eugénie's relationship, which makes the narrative feel a little flat in
parts. Think of
Phantom Thread
if Daniel Day Lewis's dressmaker wasn't a narcissist but simply an adoring
lover who delighted in creating dresses for his lover, and you'll have an
idea of the dynamic here. Following a certain plot development, the movie
loses its footing for much of its final act, only to resolve in yet
another brilliant sequence that creeps up on you, a final virtuosic dish
that will have you offering your compliments to the chef.
The Taste of Things is on MUBI UK now.
