TRÂN ANH HÙNG: THE TASTE OF THINGS/LA PASSION DE DODIN BOUFFANT (2023) - NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL



Grand meals, controlled passions

Director Trân Anh Hùng of the 1994 The Scent of Green Papaya (NYFF) won the Best Director award at this year's Cannes for his bravura, scrupulously deployed feat of epicurean cinema. The Taste of Things, grand and beautiful "food porn" though it is, feels a little pale and conventional in 360º human, emotional terms - not the breathtakingly engaging filmmaking of Justine Triet's Cannes Golden Palm-winning Anatomy of a Fall. But Taste won out over the latter as France's entry into the best foreign Oscars. And one can reluctantly see why. What could be more French for foreigners than a period haute cuisine extravaganza with a touching romance woven in played by arguably the country's two biggest movie stars of the day, Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel? It's a mild irony that something so conventionally iconic would be directed by someone not French, from a former colony.

The cooking here is of the 1880's, a baroque period for the French kitchen far, far away from the Nouvelle Cuisine of the 1960's. Menus include course after course piled high with fish or meat covered with elaborate sauces and injected or doused with multiple ingredients. A show-offy meal could take as long to consume as eight hours. Nonetheless there is much charm here. It turns out the protagonist chooses his virtuoso version of humble pot au feu as a signature dish. We see a talented young trainee sample dishes with three-star Michelin discernment (and mild disdain), and we learn, with her, that the French for Baked Alaska - a desert we see prepared in incredible detail - is "a Norwegian omelette."

The long opening sequence, in which Eugénie (Binoche) and several young women, attended by Dodin (Magimel), work in a big grand, sunny country kitchen, apparently of a chateau (though details are vague) prepare a lavish meal for half a dozen bigwigs of the local village. It's all done in trimmed-down real time, and the best stoves and equipment of the period are used: notably most of the pots and pans are traditional copper vessels lined with tin. The big old fashioned but beautifully built stoves are fueled by red hot coals. The appearance of grand cuisine being prepared in the period setting and with period equipment and in the hands-on period way is most impressive, a tour de force that manages to feel effortless and natural.

The human drama winds up feeling more self-conscious and also a bit undercooked, and a major plot point is revealed very early on, robbing the film of the element of surprise. I personally didn't understand very well what the setup here was. Descriptions suggest Dodin is a gourmet and Eugénie is working for him. But they seem to be collaborating. And its still not clear that this is a private kitchen since it is maintained at such a high level as to seem almost commercial. And while Dodin wants nothing more than to marry Eugénie, a chateau owner doesn't usually marry his cook, especially not in 1885, one should think.

One strain that makes sense is the teenage girl, Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire), the daughter of local farmers perhaps, who has been hired as an assistant, but winds up being a rather grand protégée of Dodin and ultimately a taster, whose virtuoso palate is shown off early on. When Eugénie is no longer available and Dodin is having replacement candidates prepare test dishes, the girl evaluates them along with him. The girl's cool sensuality shows us cuisine is an art whose practitioners, as with music, begin with innate talents and start early, even though Dodin says a cook only comes into their own at forty. As a chef, Eugénie seems tireless, fluid, cool, a slightly remote virtuoso. Dodin provides the emotions, loving her, loving her cookery.

But it emerges that over the twenty years they have worked together in this way a mutual warmth has developed and it's the routine that from time to time - though not always - she admits him to her bedroom in the evening. She resists his repeated proposal that they marry - until, finally, she gives in. The film, following the more prudish tendencies of the period depicted, never follows them into her bedroom. The only porn is the food porn.

The food is grand and impressive. In that opening sequence we necessarily find it glorious - until we begin to realize it is over-elaborate and heavy, and that the small group of men who consume it are overweight and unhealthy.

The romantic relationship between Eugénie and Dodin is outweighed by their working relationship. He is pleased after, when questioned, she says she thinks of herself as his cook, not as is wife. The screenplay plays with this conflict. But the ambivalence does not serve the film. Binoche is buttoned up and brave here. Magimel is a ceaseless outboard motor of energy, with a couple of scary outbursts.

Some things are timeless. When Dodin celebrates Puligny Montrachet and Chambolle Musigny as the most sublime of white and red burgundies, respectively, this was a profoundly resonant moment for this writer.

The Taste of Things/La passion de Dodin Bouffant, 145 mins., debuted at Cannes where it won the Director's Prize in competition. It was originally titled in English "The Pot-au-Feu." French release Nov. 8, 2023 (AlloCiné press rating 3.1=62%, spectators 3.5=70%) Also shown at numerous other festivals, including New York, as part of which it was screened for this review. Showing in the NYFF Oct. 5 and 7l, 2023. Limited US release by IFC and Sapan Studio in Feb. 2024 starting Feb. 9.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.