The Taste of Things (2023)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Cuisine Stars

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

It may seem like a trifle, this long, slow, French movie in which very little happens, but Tran Anh Hung's The Taste of Things is more like a truffle, a rare, rich thing that celebrates technique and process and beauty.

Dodin (Benoît Magimel) is a well-respected gourmet who, for 20 years, has lived and worked with master chef Eugénie (Juliette Binoche). Each day she spends hours turning the finest, freshest ingredients into brilliant dishes enjoyed by Dodin and his friends. Dodin and Eugénie are occasional lovers, and while Dodin would like their relationship to be more, Eugénie is happy with the arrangement.

The Prince of Eurasia invites Dodin to dine, and Dodin returns with tales of the meal; opulent as it was, it doesn't stand up to Eugénie's work. They decide to invite the prince and serve him a humble soup, a pot-au-feu. Meanwhile, a servant, Violette (Galatéa Bellugi) brings her niece Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire) for a visit, and it turns out that Pauline has a natural gift for flavors. Dodin offers to make her an apprentice to Eugénie, so she, too, can become a chef. But when tragedy strikes, all of these plans are waylaid.

The Taste of Things, like the pot-au-feu, cooks slowly over a low flame, and is to be savored. Vietnamese-born director Tran likewise works slowly — this is only his seventh feature in a 30-year career — and is enamored of textures, shapes, and light (if it were possible, he might even film smell and taste).

Even the titles of his early movies, The Scent of Green Papaya (his masterful debut) and The Vertical Ray of the Sun, evoke the kinds of images he favors.

There's magic to be experienced here, such as watching Pauline identify the ingredients of a bourguignotte sauce, all the way down to the bay leaf, or watching what, precisely, Eugénie will do with a head of lettuce, or a jarred pear, or a fantastic fish.

It's also interesting to consider what Tran leaves out of the movie, specifically the Prince's feast (we only hear the menu read), or a scene that might have taken place at the end that would have been utterly conventional, and far from the sublime ending we actually get.

Ultimately, The Taste of Things may show us an unfamiliar, perhaps impossible world, but the small sensations it supplies suggest a genuine happiness.