‘The Taste of Things’ Is the Best Food-Porn Movie of the Year
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Movies are designed to dazzle through sound and vision. That leaves three out of five senses untapped, at least until cinema reaches its inevitable maximum-immersive “feelie” stage. The Taste of Things, the latest from the French-Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung, is one of those rare works that gives you the illusion of engaging much more than just your eyes and ears. “Sensuous” is too mild an adjective to describe the way that this drama films, focuses on, and fetishizes the food that the occupants of a 19th century kitchen in the French countryside are methodically cooking up. Watch how they handle root vegetables and veal loins, the expertise in which they drizzle a stock over egg whites, the mouthwatering manner of carefully ladling fresh cream over a split-open fish, and the doling-out of a puff pastry stuffed with any number of delicacies. You’d swear that you could smell, touch and, yes, taste the meals that are being prepared on screen before you. It’s like an epicurean magic trick.
The shamans of cuisine performing these exquisite rituals largely consist of a duo: Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel), a renowned gourmand who spends his days studying the science of food when he’s not indulging in long, luxurious lunches with a group of like-minded obsessives; and Eugénie (Juliette Binoche), his in-house cook of 20 years. The two have shared a bed on numerous occasions, and Dodin has proposed marriage dozens of times; she has politely demurred for decades, and is perfectly happy to not upset the personal and professional balance they’ve established.
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Besides, their true soulful connection — the real intimacy between them —happens not between the sheets but in front of stoves and ovens. Violette (Galatéa Bellugi), a young housekeeper, helps out with minor tasks. The morning that we meet these gastronauts, Violette’s preteen niece Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire) has joined them in prepping a lavish feast. The way in which she’s able to distinguish numerous ingredients in a spoonful of a Bourguignotte sauce suggests that she’s not just curious about what’s happening in the kitchen but possesses a true, untapped gift. Both Dodin and Eugénie take notice. They may have a potential apprentice in their midst.
The nearly 30-minute sequence that kicks off The Taste of Things is indeed the sort of cinema du cuisine showcase that’s capable of throwing film lovers and food bloggers into a collective tizzy. As with other movies that capture the joys of cooking and the carnal thrill of eating, this French romantic drama is as much an ode to regional bonne bouches as it is an epic tale of two epicures. Tran Anh Hung has always been a filmmaker who favors atmosphere over fireworks, paying careful attention to the surroundings in which a story takes places as much as the story itself. You’ll likely notice that there’s no score cuing your emotional reactions, simply a soundtrack of natural noises — birds, crickets, the wind, the sound of cooking — that underscore food’s connections to its point of origin and the world around us. Not for nothing is the writer-director’s best-known work titled The Scent of Green Papaya (1993). Senses are always working overtime in his movies.
So while his camera swoops and glides and weaves its way around this couple and their helpers in the kitchen, these scenes still prize the in-progress meals and their preparation over behind-the-lens flashiness. Each instance of basting, stirring, sifting, mixing, measuring and sampling is given its proper moment, all designed to make you appreciate the labor and love that go into making these meals. (Credit three-star chef Pierre Gagnaire and his comrade-in-arms Michael Nave for the meals you see onscreen, and neurologist Ivan Pavlov for identifying why your reaction to such incredible feats of gastronomy is uncontrollable drooling.)
While Taste easily qualifies as the high-art food-porn movie of the year, and certainly isn’t shy about connecting the sensuous with the sensual — there’s a form cut between a poached-pear dessert and an au naturel backside that will raise both eyebrows and pulses — it’s primarily a film about a love of an art form.
While Taste easily qualifies as the high-art food-porn movie of the year, and certainly isn’t shy about connecting the sensuous with the sensual — there’s a form cut between a poached-pear dessert and an au naturel backside that will raise both eyebrows and pulses — it’s primarily a film about a love of an art form. Dodin and Eugénie bond over a mutual passion that goes beyond the physical — they are attracted to each other’s skills, their complementary talents, their peerless palettes, the way they share a literal and figurative sense of taste. (You do not need to know that Magimel and Binoche, both doing career-best work here, were once a couple and had a child together, though it does add a whole other dimension to their interactions onscreen.) The sometimes pretentious statements made by Dodin, who’s based on a number of real-life gourmands from the era, and his fellow gastro-nerds, also communicate a bond between them. A five-course dinner is never just a five-course dinner. It is a statement of purpose.
When Pauline appears to be a child who shares their ability to experience the whole world in a morsel, the idea that she might keep this tradition going excites them. Every generation needs its culinary curator and keeper of the flame. It’s not just food but an admiration and appreciation of food, as well as the suggestion of something divine that occurs when a true master chef prepares a dish, that keeps such things alive. That, the film suggests, keeps us alive in ways that go beyond sustenance. (Substitute cinema for food above, and the sentiment remains the same.) When death rears its ugly mug, The Taste of Things knows that grief leaves behind a residue of bitterness on the tongue. Yet it also recognizes that life is short but also sweet, and such a pleasure to have shared and tasted at all.
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