‘The Tase of Things’: A feast of love and haute cuisine, staring Juliette Binoche in the kitchen

The first half hour of La pasión de Dodin Bouffant (The Tase of Things) is enough to wet the palate for the fabulous feasts to come — the film begins with a choreography of earthly pleasures, with warms aromas wafting from ovens, fires and stovetops, immersing the viewer in the culinary rituals of French gourmet Dodin Bouffant (“The Napoleon of culinary arts,” one character calls him) and his cook of twenty years: the magnificent Eugénie, played by Juliette Binoche.

This sensual introduction, set to the sounds of the rhythm of the kitchen, puts the chemistry between Binoche and her co-star, Benoît Magimel, on the table from the outset, and suffices to suggest that exquisite dishes are not the only things cooking in this French château — a deep and mature romance is simmering as well. Over the course of two hours, we learn a few key things about this burgeoning affair, and a few more about the preparation of gourmet cuisine: from a sturgeon-marrow consommé to prep the palette for a dessert called a Norwegian omelet, followed by a charred meringue soufflé with brandy and an ice cream heart to close out the first banquet.

Under the direction of French-Vietnamese screenwriter and director Tràn Anh Hùng, The Taste of Things is based on one of Swiss novelist Marcel Rouff’s best-known works, La vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, gourmet, published in the 1920s and adapted into a successful graphic novel in the 21st century. The film, which won the award for best direction at the last Cannes Film Festival, was also chosen as the French entry for the upcoming Academy Award (not, however, without some well-deserved controversy for supplanting the widely acclaimed Anatomy of a Fall, directed by Justine Triet). Gastronomy and nationalism served on a platter — after all, Hollywood was dazzled by culinary films as early as the eighties, with Babette’s Feast, an adaptation of the Isak Dinesen story, directed by Gabriel Axel, and another adaptation of an acclaimed novel, with Like Water for Chocolate (1992), based on the story by Laura Esquivel, which was a major box-office success in the United States.

Set in the late 19th century, The Taste of Things is about bonds of love and friendship emerging through the work of the kitchen — a place in constant movement, yet serene, contrasting sharply with the hysteria of the popular series The Bear. Anh Hùng, the director of The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), focuses on the kitchen — a laboratory of large wooden tables and all the accompanying gastronomic paraphernalia — as the film’s main stage-space. More important than fancy glassware and fine china are linen cloths and aprons, and copper pots and vintage utensils, in a place wholly devoted to the discovery of pleasure.

Everything in The Taste of Things revolves around eating and cooking, including the way love itself is understood: Binoche and Magimel share their feelings through food. Plagued by an overabundance of culinary references and an inevitable excess of cloying sweetness, the film nevertheless fulfills its purpose: it is a delicacy that, guided by the sounds and movements of a story of love and recipes, will literally make your mouth water.

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