‘The Taste of Things’ simmers with delight
France’s submission for the foreign-language Academy Award, “The Taste of Things” (“Pot au Feu”) has an interesting pedigree. It’s based on a 1924 novel by Swiss gourmand Marcel Rouff entitled “The Life and Passion of DodinBouffant.” The film stars the great Juliette Binoche and the talented and charismatic French actor Benoit Magimel (“The Piano Teacher”), who have a daughter together.
The two play lovers, as well as employer and servant. The film’s director is Vietnamese-French filmmaker Tran Anh Hung, who made the great, food-related 1993 effort “The Scent of Green Papaya.” Tran emigrated to France at age 12. The new film is set for the most part in a vast old chateau in the Loire valley, where the inventive and articulate chef Dodin-Bouffant (Magimel) is happy to have his hugely gifted servant Eugenie (Binoche) prepare his complicated, deeply aromatic and flavored meals.
We see Eugenie in the large, well-stocked and designed kitchen with its fireplace and enormous, wood-burning stove and her assistants Violette (Galatea Bellugi) and the preteen prodigy Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire). The kitchen has no running water. The girls must fetch it from a well. All of the herbs are supplied by Eugenie’s large, well-tended garden. In an evocation of the 1987 classic “Babette’s Feast,” we watch Eugenie and her helpers make several courses of food timed to be ready to serve one by one to her employer and his posse of pear-shaped, middle-class men, one of whom is a doctor. If you are into food, the film is a fascinating, mouth-watering experience.
Tran’s trademark, gliding camerawork turns the event into a dance, demonstrating that a well-run kitchen is indeed a matter of timing and footwork. The “astonishing girl” Pauline tastes a bit of sauce created by virtual chemist Dodin-Bouffant and rattles off 12 or so of its ingredients as if in a trance. Eugenie prepares, among several other things, a loin of veal and buttered and herb-scented fillets of turbot. A giant brioche is filled with creamed vegetables and served like a cake.
Sweat and consomme are equally produced. The young women are served everything Eugenie makes in order to teach them how the food should look and taste. Puligny-Montrachet and Musigny are served to thirsty guests and servants alike. The vibe is very “Upstairs, Downstairs” and “Downton Abbey” where all the best scenes were in the kitchens. Dodin gushes over Escoffier.
“The Taste of Things” blossoms into a courtly romance, involving Eugenie and Dodin, and Binoche and Magimel make enchanting older lovers. Dodin
requests a late night meeting with her in her room. She teases him, but agrees. Dodin then cooks for Eugenie: oysters and caviar, poultry stuffed with truffles and shipwrecked Champagne rescued from the bottom of the sea. A celebratory wedding meal in the woods is an Impressionist painting. A foreign prince invites Dodin and his friends to dinner, and it is vulgar overkill. But it inspires Dodin to return the favor and invite the prince over for pot-au-feu, France’s humble national dish, boiled meat and vegetables in a single pot. The food in “The Taste of Things” is a delicious expression of culture and the love between Dodin and Eugenie. And who can resist dinner with Binoche?
(“The Taste of Things” contains sexually suggestive scenes)