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The Taste of Things

This delicacy, directed by Tran Ahn Hung, is France's entry for best foreign language film for this year's Oscars. And it has a good shot at winning too. Disregard the awful English title - it's called La Passion de Dodin Bouffant in French - and prepare yourself for some of the most lovingly presented images imaginable.

There's an amazing extended opening that captures activity in a rustic 19th century kitchen. Eugénie (the ageless Juliette Binoche) and Dodin (Benoît Magimel) are cook and gourmet of the manor. He's smitten, has been for 20 years, but it seems Eugénie wants to keep things professional. Clearly, without her skills to complement his, he wouldn't be known as 'the Napoleon of Gastronomy'.

This is only Tran's fourth film in 23 years, since he hit his peak in 2000 with The Vertical Ray of the Sun. Like that work of art, The Taste of Things is incredibly lush and evocative. Cinematographer Jonathan Ricquebourg's camera hovers through the kitchen and gardens, allowing the viewer a sense of movement and immersion. There's rightly been a lot of discussion about the food preparation scenes but the externals, specifically the gardens and manor grounds, are just as gorgeous to look at. And there's one particular scene with the sunlight entering a kitchen window that looks like a Caravaggio painting.

I might be making it sound like a museum piece but there's a pretty moving story beside all the cracking visuals. Eugénie falls ill, causing Dodin to focus all his epicurean energy into a meal, with ulterior romantic motives. There's also a sidebar about potentially taking on a young apprentice, Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire), as well as a blanched MacGuffin in the form of a menu for the Prince of Eurasia.

The near two and a half hour runtime whizzes by - a neat trick for such a leisurely paced film - and the final scene is triumphantly melancholy. Lovely stuff.

The Taste of Things is screening at UWA Somerville from Jan 22 - 28 as part of the Perth Festival.

See also:

You can't go wrong with Tran's 'Vietnam trilogy' - The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), Cyclo (1995) and The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000). I was also put in mind of Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci's similarly lip-smacking Big Night (1996).

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