Photo via Stéphanie Branchu/IFC Films
The movie The Taste of Things starts with a very long scene where you watch a meal prepared in the kitchen of a French country house in the late 1800s. There is spare dialogue as people chop, stir, sift, braise, cream, brown, baste, taste-test and garnish for over half an hour.
And yet........you are mesmerized. I hadn't slept well the night before I saw this movie but was wide awake and riveted to the screen throughout.
There have been some great cooking movies.
Babette's Feast and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman are two of my favourites but I think The Taste of Things outdoes them all.
Photo by Carole Bethuel/IFC Films
The director of the film Tran Anh Hung was obsessed with making the cooking scenes realistic. On-site chefs coached the actors as they prepared food with culinary techniques that would have been in vogue a hundred and fifty years ago.
I was surprised to learn that vegetables looked very different in the 1800s than they do today and the director made sure the ones in the film were authentic to the time.
A fabulous dessert they make in the movie
Often films use artificial food so you can shoot scenes with it multiple times but every dish prepared in this film is REAL.
The film isn't only a love affair with food but also chronicles the love affair between a cook Eugénie played by Juliette Binoche and a chef and gourmet Dodin played by Benoît Magimel. They make preparing food together a sensuous and stirring activity that keeps your eyes glued to the screen.
Photo by Carole Bethuel / IFC Films
Later in the film Dodin prepares a fabulous meal for Eugenie and then puts an engagement ring in the dessert as a proposal.
They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach but in this movie, it's the way to a woman's heart too.
Many frames in this film are bathed in the most glorious light and there is a forest picnic scene with a table full of Dodin and Eugénie's friends in attendance that made me feel for all the world like I had stepped into a painting by Monet or Degas.
Photo by Carole Bethuel / IFC Films
Galatéa Bellugi and Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire, play two young girls who are learning to cook from Dodin and Eugénie and they inject wonderful hope and optimism into the story.
This is a tender, beautiful film and watching it can provide viewers with a kind of calm and lovely oasis for a couple of hours.
I saw the film in San Antonio but it is showing in Winnipeg right now at the Dave Barber Cinematheque. A quick search online reveals it is now playing at theatres across Canada, and should soon be streaming on various services.
Other posts..........
Cooking Up a Storm in the Yucatan
Love in A Lunch Box
A Meal From My Novel
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