As the saying goes, film is a visual medium. But it’s often easy to overlook the importance of sound, even though the introduction of synchronized sound is possibly the single most importance advancement in the history of motion pictures. Films can sometimes then feel limited when trying to convey the other senses: touch, smell, and taste. All of these senses are important when it comes to food (unless you’re eating ortolan) – so how do you make a great food movie?
Director Trần Anh Hùng’s recipe for his latest film The Taste of Things (in France, La Passion de Dodin Bouffant) involves turning up the heat when it comes to the sound. There is no score – the sound is all diagetic, and because it is pretty light on the dialogue too, we are introduced to this 19th century French country estate through the voluminous sounds: of boiling, pouring, sizzling, of clinking pans and scraping utensils, and even of chewing, sucking, and slurping. All your senses are activated and engaged: you not only see and hear the cooking, but can almost smell, touch, and taste the food too.
The film opens with a breathtaking 35-minute sequence that evokes a more prolonged and intense version of the opening scene of Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. French gourmand Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) and his chef Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) painstakingly and lovingly prepare an elaborate meal for Dodin and his friends, with the kitchen as the heart of the home and a place where it feels like magic actually happens. Trần’s constant use of long continuous tracking shots underline his belief that no detail in the kitchen or the cooking process is too small to dwell on. In this instance, seeing how the sausage gets made actually makes the food more appetizing. It is a chef’s procedural.
Being a period piece is also a thoughtful move. Like with Babette’s Feast, each dish is even more impressive knowing that modern technology is not used at all, and that much more time and effort was put into it. The film, longingly sumptuous and dazzlingly decadent, understands and appreciates the cooking of food as the perfect marriage of science and art and adventure (just one of the many memorable quotes: “the discovery of a new dish brings more joy to humanity than the discovery of a new star”). Any Instagram influencer with Yelp elite status might think of themselves as a foodie, but watching this film, you are reminded that there are levels to this. We may live in an age of food porn, but this is food love.
As much as The Taste of Things is about food – and there is no doubt that it easily belongs on the Mount Rushmore of great food movies – it is even more about love, unusual of a love story though it is The relationship between Dodin and Eugénie is much, much more than gourmand and chef, but it also recognizes that food is a central part of their relationship, and everything comes from that. They give themselves through their food. The two have an easy chemistry (Binoche and Magimel used to be married in real life) that permeates through each scene and each meal shared with each other, as they prepare food for each other with such care and affection, and consume it with such sensual gusto that the actual sex is superfluous.
If there was ever any doubt that that food could be a love language, The Taste of Things clears that up frame by resounding frame. It is a love letter to food and gastronomy but also to love and life and creativity and seasonality, and will leave you with much to chew on and digest (and actually hungry – be sure to have made dinner reservations somewhere afterwards). As much as food brings people together, it can also bring healing and hope. Meals become something special not when they are used to show off status or gaining Michelin stars, but when they are shared with family and friends and loved ones.
Now playing in theatres.
