THE TASTE OF THINGS (2023) (1 Viewer)

[JoeStemme]

TASTE OF THINGS (aka POT-AU-FEU ) 2023. The original French title POT-AU-FEU (“Pot On Fire”) is much more apropos as 'Taste of Things' makes it sound like the name for a generic cooking show. Based on a novel by Marcel Rouff, Anh Hung Tran's movie (for which he also wrote the adaptation) is about a famed Chef, Dodin (Benoit Magimel), who runs a manor with his Chef Eugenie (Juliette Binoche) and their assistant Violette (Galatea Bellugi). Along the way, a precocious young girl named Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire) enters the scene eager to learn all about the culinary arts from a master. Eugenie has lived in the home for years, sharing more than meals.

The plot isn't very complex - by design. It's fairly easy to discern what direction it's moving it. No matter. Like with cooking, it's all in the details. Tran is a sensualist as he displayed in his debut feature SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA. One will be quite hungry as Jonathan Ricquebourg's camera seemingly lingers on each and every ingredient as it's prepared and savored. It's a movie about the process of not only cooking, but of living.

TASTE OF THINGS is a dual romance with the love of food inter-twined with the relationship between the couple. The sexiest scene in the movie is one where Dodin simply cooks for Eugenie and he sits and watches her enjoy her meal. The storyline yields few genuine surprises, but, as with the finest meals, it's all about the payoff. Tran and his talented cast carry it off heartily.

Currently streaming on AMC+ and for rental.

 

[tenia]

Not that I dislike watching freeloaders food-addicts living for their next meals (what are most of these people doing of their days anyway ?), but I found the movie very superficial overall, down to its very digital sheen of photography, which makes the movie not so good looking (especially for the roughly 2/3rds not being cooking scenes).

It's also a movie that tries to be sensual but often isn't, and even at times is just plain eye-rolling (that fade with the pear is particularly cringe-y).

All this would be fine (in some way) if it wasn't for Tran Anh Hung's statements that "things were better before, when we had time to do good cooking and then savour it", all for a movie full of leisury people that, yeah sure, are happy few bourgeois living for this and seemingly have nothing else to do, something the movie has 0 thought about. It doesn't offer much more depth in its main relationship, which is obvious from the start except for the movie, which hammers down the obvious 3 times. Sure the movie needs to be 2h15 long when it requires so much explanations, but it really could have lasted 1h25.