5. The Taste of Things, dir. Tran Anh Hung
I did not see this on many Best of 2024 lists. The Taste of Things may have gotten lost in the shuffle of releases since it came out in February, or many critics considered it a 2023 movie. It is on Variety's 2023 list for example. The Taste of Things screened at Cannes two years ago, released in France in fall '23, and was the French entry at the 96th Academy Awards. As always my rule is I count only the American releases, which is when the movie is available for me to see it, and presumably most available for my Anglosphere audience. It would have ranked very highly on the 2023 lists if I had put it there. And The Taste of Things is definitely deserving of discussion one year after release, or two years after release, I'll be bothering people about The Taste of Things for decades.
The Taste of Things is a movie about food, and everything about it. It is about cooking, about eating, about chewing, about tasting, about feeding, about caring, and about the satisfied sigh of relief after a good meal. The only thing it is missing is the burping and farting. The first half hour is a single sequence across a day in a busy 19th century kitchen preparing a great abundance of food. Tran Anh Hung shoots his actors actually preparing real food on camera, which is rare in cinema. They actually were in an old kitchen and used old antique such as ice boxes. We see the entire process of making the meal from pulling vegetables out of the dirt to gutting the fish to clarifying the butter.
I was enraptured by the choreography and performance on display. It was just magnificent. I know people are excited by violence on film or sex on film, but you can be just as excited by a passionate production, be it cooking or anything else. It is food porn mixed with competence porn. The opening of The Taste of Things was the single most exciting cinematic adventure of 2024. There was this wonderful suspense as a team of men and women worked tirelessly to prepare some mystery dish, which turns out to be a five course meal for their local gentry friends. Who are all smiles and warmth as they enjoy what has been created.
The meals are so important to The Taste of Things that I must discuss what that first meal was. We start with a beautiful clear consommé soup, then second course is a seafood pot pie, then a turbot in a creamy hollandaise sauce, next a gorgeous rack of veal for the entree, and finally, just to fully stunt on anybody not blown away, Baked Alaska. This is all physical craftsmanship, the eroticism of eating and cooking, of getting pleasure from your guest's pleasure. The Taste of Things is also really horny in a very French way. There is a shot of a boiled dessert pear that is match cut to a naked woman's behind in repose. Food leads to ass in more than one way.
Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) is the genius chef who prepares this meal for her guests, who beg her to sit down and join them. Her employer is Dodin (Benoît Magimel), an independently wealthy gourmet whose large home is dedicated entirely to cooking. Eugénie and Dodin are both in the autumn years of their life, they've lived and worked together for a decade, sometimes as employer and employee, sometimes as more. Dodin might get to visit his chef's bedroom at night, or maybe the door is closed to him. He eventually convinces Eugénie to marry him, just as an illness is beginning to overcome her. This is a romance of the final years of life, with food again, being the great vessel of their passion: it can be both flirtation and caregiving.
Dodin's signature dish is Pot-au-feu, which was actually The Taste of Things' original title back at Cannes. This is a signature French dish. It is also probably the most intimidating item made in The Taste of Things. Dodin is a master of this stew, which involves slow cooked beef, potatoes, and vegetables in a broth. The broth is then served separately with you eating the meat and veg on a plate with some pickles and sauces. Personally, I find any beef stew worrisome, because cuts of steak so easily dry out if you prepare it poorly. Worse, you're serving all the parts naked. It is a such a simple dish that you cannot hide a cheap stock or little mistakes under spices or salt or fats. Our gourmet's recipe is so involved and fussy that several chefs take one look at his instructions and just walk out the door. Frankly I do not think I'll ever made this: Beef Bourguignon is almost certainly easier thanks to the bacon and rich sauce. However, Dodin is an artist of Pot-au-feu, this dish is his life's work. He got to share that passion with Eugénie, and will continue to share it with the world.
Who cannot be inspired by that? It is a dream life.
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