‘The Taste of Things’: how Trần Anh Hùng used food as foreplay
Hollywood has taught us that love and lust manifests in many different ways. In the movies, we’ve seen sweeping declarations of affection that always seem to happen in the most dramatic of ways. There’s a heightened sense of romanticism and easily solvable misunderstandings that are entirely unlike real life, creating absorbing yet unrealistic fantasies that distort our perception of love and the way it should be shown.
Most love is completely ordinary and untainted by the emotional extremism we see in the movies, with couples screaming and kissing in the pouring rain, pebbles being thrown at your window and last-minute dashes through the airport. While it is all fun to watch on screen, it has somewhat altered our perception of relationships and what defines passion, with people believing that equal measures of struggle and strife lead to a passionate and all-consuming love affair.
However, in recent years, we’ve come to see more rounded and authentic portrayals of relationships on screen, with the ups and downs of love being captured in a myriad of new ways as people begin to expand their perspective of courtship, longing and heartbreak. However, while we’ve seen a number of new spins on the romance genre, from the use of peaches, time travel and train journeys, there is one recent film that captured sexual tension and the unspoken love between two people in an entirely new way.
The Taste of Things, directed by Trần Anh Hùng in 2023, is based on Marcel Rouff’s 1924 novel The Life and Passion of Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet. The story follows the life of a French chef who lives with his exceptionally talented personal cook and lover during the late 1880s. Euegénie (played by Juliette Binoche) refuses to marry Dodin, and so he decides to show her how he feels by doing something he has never done before—cooking for her.
Do not be fooled: it is by no means a traditionally structured narrative in which the couple goes through a number of trials and miscommunications before finally getting together. No, The Taste of Things is a slow and sensual viewing experience in which the director encourages the audience to savour each frame. This leads to a romance that simmers throughout the entire runtime and builds to a wonderful concoction of love that is baked to perfection.
Towards the beginning of the film, we soon learn that we are about to embark on a story that is every bit as patient as the process of cooking, with Euegénie creating a beautiful feast for Dodin in which Hùng treasures each and every aspect of the meals’ creation. It opens with a 40-minute long sequence of just one meal being prepared, with a quiet background yet immersive cacophony of sizzling and chopping sounds as she prepares dish after dish of exquisite food. She carefully pulls vegetables out of the earth, bastes meat in melted butter and tastes a bubbling pot of creamy sauce. It is a feast for the senses, with Eugénie delightfully revelling in her craft as she chips away at each component of the banquet.
Much like the creation of the broth that opens the film, in which it has to simmer for a long time in order for it to develop a deep and layered flavour, each scene in the film subtly reflects both the joy of life’s simpler pleasures, which slowly begins to reflect the tenderness and care expressed between both characters.
“An undercurrent of passion being infused into each dish that revitalises your senses and lust for life itself.”
Dodin is completely enamoured by Eugénie, dazzled by her talents as a chef and by her as a person, telling her that he wants to marry her. This is something that she objects to for reasons that we can’t really understand. But she is adamant that it wouldn’t be right and refutes his gentle advances as he tries to share the depth of his feelings for her. And so, in one sweeping gesture to demonstrate his love and affection for her, he decides that the tables should be turned, and for one night, he will be the one to cook for her.
What ensues is a stunning and deeply romantic sequence that is equally as long as the film’s opening, going into painstaking detail about the construction of one perfect meal. No detail is too small to be overlooked, with gorgeous imagery of Dodin shucking oysters, roasting meat and peeling the tender flesh of a cooked pear. It is rich and luscious in the way we are encouraged to devour the simplest of sights, becoming wrapped up in the warmth and flavour of one long courting period. Dodin is successful in his courtship of Eugénie, hiding an engagement ring inside the final course of the meal.
In many ways, the elaborate and sensual nature of their cooking is more erotic than any sex scene we could see. Both characters express their love for each other through their craft and their care for each meal, with every plate of food existing as its own form of foreplay as they subtly express their passion for each other. Hùng shows how we communicate through our creations, and after 20 years of dedicating the entirety of their thoughts to the food they eat and how to relish in the sensual pleasures of cooking, it finally builds to a height as they translate their love for each other through one delightful meal.
Every carrot, steak and baked Alaska made over the building years was a singular expression of desire and longing, with an undercurrent of passion being infused into each dish that revitalises your senses and lust for life itself.
