Dodin is a gastronomic director conceiving magical experiences of taste and smell. As the cook, Eugénie is the physical extension of Dodin’s mind. They are one in the kitchen, but also one in the bedroom, sharing a complex relationship that finds clarity when the couple pick up their pots and pans.
Warm and rustic, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that much of The Taste of Things is a Jamie Oliver special directed by Terrence Malick. However, this doesn’t hold the film back. Director Tran Anh Hung’s journey towards capturing the culinary sublime is at its best when it’s at its most sensual.
The opening half-hour of the film contains some dialogue, but it’s only background noise to the seamless audio-visual trip that Anh Hung plates for us. Through the windows, shimmering morning rays land on a copper pot. A chicken emerges from an oven, golden brown, skin crisping under the scratches of a knife. My packet of M&Ms begins to taste like Belgian chocolate. We witness the pair preparing a feast, and to say that this isn’t one of the most pleasurable experiences one can have in a cinema would be an outright lie. At one point in this sensorial set-piece, Dodin offers a young girl a spoonful of sauce. What perfect pitch is to sound, she possesses to flavour. Encouraging of her gift, the gourmet challenges her to deduce the concoction’s ingredients.
Although the film is structurally chaste, rarely abandoning its linear narrative, here, it experiments. As the girl names each component, the film flashes back to their preparation. Short Ribs. Smoked bacon. Red bell peppers and mushrooms. It’s a small decision in the editing room that reveals a great deal about the film’s priorities: it’s not a scene about a teacher and a student, it’s a moment of understanding between two individuals far apart in their lives, with little in common but their love for food. Anh Hung thinks that kind of love is enough.
It’s a modest statement, but one that inspires a life-affirming feeling. There’s something humanist in witnessing the joy shared between people on a dinner table, almost eliminating the need to characterise these individuals in the first place. Their smiles are already familiar. At times, the film does drift into the absurd: a group of men indulge in ortolan by covering their heads with napkins in order to better sense the aromas. Still, these scenes are comic in a way that’s genuine, you never really laugh at the men as much as you are humoured by their child-like awe towards food.
Juliet Binoche’s quiet performance as Eugénie is endearing, and the film greatly misses her during the scenes in which she is absent. Played assertively by Benoît Magimel, Dodin rejects the title of ‘poet’ even though he pompously monologues like an obsessed visionary. Still, he’s less There Will Be Blood’s Daniel Plainview and more Dead Poet Society’s Mr Keating. Their 20-year relationship in which he constantly approaches her for marriage despite her persistent rejections may, at a distance, seem like exploitation. However, Tran Anh Hung depicts a sincere bond based on respect and admiration. At one moment, Dodin prepares dinner for Eugénie. May I watch you eat? They’re soulmates who share one more passion than the one they already have for each other.
“Copper pots and pans in the kitchen of Petworth House, East Sussex” by Anguskirk is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.